There Is No Order, There Is Only Chaos
by psychotol
Summary: After Ahsoka leaves the order and Barris gets convicted, life goes on. This follows the events of The Wrong Jedi.
1. New Day

Constraints: Immediately after 5:20 – The Wrong Jedi

Synopsis: As above basically, everyone getting used to the new situation.

There Is No Order, There Is Chaos.

Content: Bit violent here and there, alien swear words.

* * *

Betrayal.

Cowardly.

Ungrateful.

Unbeleivable.

The word Karking was by far the most frequent word occurring in Ahsoka's thoughts as she sat at the table in the ship's cantina.

She looked at the bar wondering if getting shavitfaced would help anything, but she had seen drunk, stoned and wired people before.

"Ugh," she commented at the images in her head. None of the people doing booze or spice were a good advert for their particular vice.

A lot of people had been looking at her as she had entered the spaceport, purchased her ticket, boarded the ship, and sat here, not yet having checked out her room.

The ship looked in good order, so odds were it was fine. There was a chance it wasn't, but she had endured sleeping on mud, sleeping on rocks, not sleeping in a cage because the collar the Zygerians had locked on her kept zapping her on command, so that was fairly karkawful accommodations right there.

But the looks everyone kept giving her.

She was famous because she was being tried on live holovision for multiple counts of murder, one count causing an explosion with intent to endanger life, one count being unlawfully at large, one count witness tampering, one count conspiracy to tamper with evidence, one count fare dodging, three counts resisting arrest, all this was a pile of shavite.

She was about to hear the verdict the jury had rendered. Anakin arrived with the real perpetrator just in time.

It would have been nice to have her name cleared without it being found that Barriss was the one who had framed her.

Barriss Offee.

"_I did it. Because I've come to realize what many people in the Republic have come to realize, that the Jedi are the ones responsible for this War. That we've so lost our way that we have become villains in this conflict, that we are the ones that should be put on trial, all of us. And my attack on the Temple was an attack on what the Jedi have become. An army fighting for the Dark side, fallen from the Light that we once held so dear, this Republic is failing. It's only a matter of time._"

It was hard to call Barriss wrong on some points. The idea of buying brainwashed clones from Kamino as if they were just another gun or tank, that never sat right.

And Padme didn't have a lot of polite words to say about a lot of the legislation being considered by the senate and being proposed by Palpatine.

But one of the more offensive things Barriss had done was stab Ahsoka in the back, twist the knife various ways, Ahsoka had saved Barriss's life a couple of times, she had thought Barriss and her were friends from that point.

How the karking hell ... ?

There was precident for the dark side turning Jedi against their best friends, even their family. Then there was that thing with that Mortis Monolith where she herself had gone darkside, and then Anakin had gone darkside ...

The theory was well established, passion, that is, shavit that gets to you, that is REALLY gets to you, can turn a light side force active individual into a darkside force active individual.

Karking hell though, it was still a kick to the ovaries to find it was Barriss.

But the Jedi Council, what the kark was THEIR excuse? Face the danger, hold no fear, seek the truth. Anakin wasn't the only one who had detected a lack of interest in the situation from the council, that was SO not a thorough interview, no followup on that hearing, just, "we think you're guilty, you're fired, now kark off."

Not in those words, these being Jedi masters, but still ...

"Yeah, about that rush to judgement thing, we're really sorry about that. Want back in?"

Ahsoka had walked into the room thinking she DID want back in.

But then her padawan braid offered to her, after hearing their apologies, and Mace trying to put a positive spin on- KARK THEM ALL!

If they had admitted they were bell-ends, had they not tried to put a positive spin on it, "you're a better Jedi for having gone through all this," "this was a great trial, yippee," for kark's sake ...

She just couldn't do it, the situation was different now.

When she was wanted everyone feared her, when she was on trial, everyone scorned her, when she was acquitted everyone pitied her. Karking waves of emotion directed towards her.

Kark it, time to check out her cabin. All that emotion was doing her head in.

* * *

"_It's not that I gave up, Skywalker - but unlike you, when the time comes, I am prepared to let my student go. Can you say the same?_"

Those words tasted like shavit.

Luminara had imagined her Padawan possibly dying or being maimed in action, that was a dread of hers, but she had made herself ready for that eventuality.

Her padawan was going to die by being executed for a bunch of crimes including murders, blowing up the temple, and, errrrrr, oh yes ... Framing Ahsoka for all of it.

Luminara observed she must really stop turning her lightsabre on and off as she started to notice the looks all the officers on the bridge were giving her.

Some of what Barriss had said in court was right, but damn it, how the karking hell does that excuse ... ... ...

She told her XO "take command, I'm going to go meditate," as she turned and stepped off the bridge.

Her Padawan. HER padawan.

What had Luminara failed to do here? Where had she ... what was the critical mistake? ... or mistakes, plural?

"General?" asked a clone.

Luminara looked up to see one of the clone troopers staring at her alarmed.

She looked down again.

Her lightsabre was on.

It was poking through her off hand.

She turned it off and put it on her belt. "As you were," she said as she made her way to the infirmary.

The pain was actually refreshing for some reason.

* * *

"That's one of them Jedi that blew up my factory," groused Poggle.

He was still talking in Geonosian, barely 'lowering himself' to speak Basic, but because he was important in Geonosian society, Cad and Aurra had taken the effort to learn Geonosian.

After all, if you know someone important, it's possible their friends outside will spring you alongside them.

So, Aurra and Cad looked where Poggle was looking and indeed it was a Jedi.

Well, a padawan.

How did they know? She was on the news. "And the other was a Togruta was it?" asked Cad.

A Mirialan and a Togruta had infiltrated the factory intent on blowing it up.

They had laid their charges before they were engaged in the reactor room, but Poggles guards had managed to remove them. The two Jedi had then holed up in one of the tanks.

Normally you wouldn't expect people, however well protected, to shoot a reactor from point blank, especially if they'd in all likelihood get buried under tens of metres of rock.

Karking Jedi.

They're nutters, the lot of them.

"And she's also the one who betrayed the Jedi order," added Aurra, smiling mischeviously.

"Yeah," said Cad, he was in admiration of Barriss now her treachery had been revealed pan galactically, but he had some doubts that Poggle didn't.

"Now she's a separatist ally," said Poggle, "we have a better chance of victory."

"I don't think she's pro separatist," said Cad, "She's anti Jedi, or rather, she's anti what she thinks the Jedi have become, that doesn't necessarily mean she'd help the seperatists."

Aurra nodded saying "He's right, I wouldn't approa-"

Poggle declared "Nonsense" waving his hand dismissively as he stood up and walked over saying "I'm going to introduce myself."

Cad and Aurra sat at their table watching Poggle go. Aurra and Cad then looked to Poggle's plate, both grabbed the plate with a hand, Cad pointed at some of the food items on the plate saying "I call this, this and this."

"Fine," said Aurra as she and Cad both move the remaining items to their plates.

Having divided up the food, they looked back towards Poggle as he reached Barriss who was now sat at her table about to eat.

The first syllable out of Poggles mouth caused Barriss to whirl around in her seat and grab Poggles head, snapping it one way, killing him, and then the other, redundantly twisting his head back and forth five times before dropping him and kicking away at his dead body, all the while, she looked scared, totally bricking it.

"Hmm," said Cad as he finished chewing a bite and swallowed it, he then said "Didn't Poggle say something about those two padawans being on a ship that almost got overrun by Geonosian mind worms?"

"Yes he did," said Aurra, "Jedi get ass deep in trouble all the time, so I wouldn't expect Barriss to be so panicky at the sound of Geonosian dialect, unless ... " the smile on her face caused Cad to nod.

"She got possessed didn't she?" Said Cad.

Guards had arrived to reign in Barriss who had her hands up and her head bowed, other guards had arrived with a medical droid and a stretcher for Poggle.

"Hmm," pondered Aurra, "that was more a reflex action, and he wanted to recruit her. What if our approach is to offer our services to her should she break out?"

Cad nodded saying "I'd definitely rather be out than in, even if she can't afford to pay us ... if there's no money in working for her, we break out alongside her and do one the instant something more profitable comes up, but she will need money for whatever she wants to do."

Aurra nodded.

* * *

Ahsoka could sense him a kilometre off.

She heard him creeping up behind her and heard him draw his weapon. His weapon shot to her hand.

Sitting up, she pointed it at the Rodian, who now looked worried.

"Who are you?" asked Ahsoka.

"Greedo. Please don't kill me, I can be very useful."

"Okay, you can help me figure out what you're doing sneaking into my quarters while I'm asleep in them." After a pause, she pointed the blaster at his crotch. She hadn't sensed any sexual attraction in him towards her, but if he felt that was what she thought he was there for, he might be a bit more open as a matter of urgency so that he could retain the ability to urinate from a standing position.

"For the bounty! I'm here for the bounty."

"The boun- ...It's been cancelled you tit." Said Ahsoka, the only time she was aware of having a price on her head was when she was unlawfully at large trying to clear her name.

"Nice try," said Greedo.

"My acquittal occurred on galactic holovision," said Ahsoka, exasperated at the fail before her, "how the karking hell did you miss that?"

"Your mind tricks won't work on me," said Greedo.

"Mind trick, that's good, I like that, I like that a lot," said Ahsoka, she then said "I fine you one blaster for constituting a moron. Now," she directed her force capabilities towards his mind saying "Kark off."

Greedo obediently marched out fast. Ahsoka then telekinetically closed the door behind him.

How had that Pratt missed the news?

* * *

"So, how's Ahsoka doing?" asked Padme as she and Anakin sat down on the couch in Padme's Corouscant residence.

"No idea. She did one," said Anakin, producing Ahsoka's braid.

" ... Oh ... " said Padme.

"Yeah. Not sure I blame her, council's rush to judgement, Barriss being the culprit, karking hell. What a clusterkark that was."

"Tell me about it," said Padme, "that Barriss character's karked with my efforts to seek a political settlement, this war can't go on forever, but thanks to Barriss, everyone's now putting forth questions as to whether or not we approve of her actions. Karking idiots."

"Well, it's up to the separatists to surrender isn't it?" said Anakin.

"Unconditionally? From their perspective, they're still in with a chance. If a satisfactory compromise can be reached that feels less like a gamble than continuing the war, and you've been in enough fights to know that war is always a gamble, always."

"So we surrender?"

"Of course not, and that's a false dichotomy, you don't do false dichotomies on operations do you?" replied Padme.

Anakin replied "alright, you got a point ... Kark this argument, let's just do something fun, or relaxing, or ... something."

"Something ... " mused Padme, looking thoughtful. She then got a smirk and started a suggestion.

* * *

Ahsoka joined the rest of the passengers getting off at Shili. Mostly Togrutas. Not many people other than relatives of Shili nationals have any reason to visit Shili.

A certain Rodian saw her and approached.

Ahsoka watched him approach and before he said anything she said "no you can't have your blaster back."

"Blasters are cheap, fuel back to Tatooine, parking fees on Coruscant, you've put me in a hole."

"Oh kark off, it's your inattention to detail that's put you in your karking hole," said Ahsoka, really not getting any happier with this guy.

"Well what am I supposed to do now then?" asked Greedo.

"What? Why are you asking me?" asked Ahsoka.

Greedo didn't have an answer.

The door opened and everyone stepped off the ship. Ahsoka went to a holoterminal and started looking for her home address.

It then occurred to her that she hadn't been here since Plo picked her up as a very small child. Her head barely reached crotch level back then. Now she's a young adult. Her mum would probably struggle to remember giving birth to her.

Also, did her parents have a spare room?

Kark, kark, kark, kark, kark.

Get a hotel room?

How much is that going to cost?

And she had slagged off Greedo for his lack of forward planning.

No problem, she'll just have to get a job is all. She developed many skills as a Jedi, not just combat and force manipulation, she could fix just about any busted up equipment almost instinctively.

How hard can it be?

Oh for kark's sake, did she just ask herself ... never mind ...

Ahsoka started off to the taxi ramp.

* * *

The structure of Togrutian villages was part castle, part leisure resort. It was like everyone was nostalgic about the origins of Togrutian culture but at the same time reluctantly accepting the need to adopt current and future technology.

Ahsoka had seen sections of Togruta of various states of physical health jogging with oversized backpacks and blaster rifles. Cab driver mentioned how hearing about Kiros had gotten everyone on edge.

They eventually arrived at the village her parents lived at.

Ahsoka paid the fare and got out.

She approached the entrance. There was a variety of ways togrutian villages had been built, but the castle part of this particular togrutian village was this slightly misshapen ring of soil about 5 metres high that tapered low at each end, a lap made the ring seem seamless from a distance. The idea being the village looks like just another hill from a distance.

Inside, that all changes. A retaining wall increased the available space inside, several steps about 1.5 metres each provided walkways so sentries could walk a complete circle, a bridge covered the entrance. The grass towards the top of the mound was left tall to conceal the sentries montrals.

There was no camouflage netting covering the village, by the time they had developed aircraft, any togruta vs togruta wars had more or less ended, the consideration was more about akhuls and other large critters.

She eventually made eye contact with her dad, who had two children approximately 3 and 8 years old.

"Ahsoka? This is a surprise," started the conversation, about 15 metres away, the sort of distance over which humans would have to shout to hear each other.

"Yeah, sorry to drop in, if there's no room for me to stay, I'll find a hotel, I just needed to ... Come home I guess."

He eventually got to within 3 metres, Ahsoka's brothers (?) looking at her, assessing her. He asked "how've you been since the trial?"

"-" Ahsoka was about to say 'karked', but she was also aware of widespread concern of the exposure of young montrals to foul language, so she said "very lost to be honest."

"Are you sure she's innocent dad?" asked the 8yo boy, prompting Ahsoka's dad to slap him across one of his montrals saying "Oi, show some respect you little shavite, this is your older sister."

Ahsoka relaxed slightly saying "not a problem, I started to doubt my innocence too occasionally. Still," she turned to her brother saying "bit strong innit? What prompted that?"

"When was the last time you were even here?" asked her brother.

"Seriously," said Ahsoka's dad, "knock it off."

He then looked back at Ahsoka but Ahsoka was now feeling like she had made a mistake coming back, the culture on Shili was so team orientated that her absence for all this time ...

"Pay no attention to him, little twerp thinks Jedi are big celebrities, come on," he motioned for Ahsoka to follow him to their apartment.

Even Shili had weather, so Togruta villages had enclosed and weatherproof houses, underground communal spaces for recreation, eating, etc. Sleeping areas were shared, so one bedroom filled with as many beds as there were members of the family. It was interesting how some species were desperate to pretend to their children that sex didn't exist. Imagine their reaction if they were to hear that Togrutian children often had a front row seat to the conception of their younger siblings.

There were pictures on the walls of various achievements, that had included news screencaps of Ahsoka any time she had appeared in the news either as the main story or had just been caught on camera in the background.

"So, taking a break from saving the galaxy?" asked her dad.

"Well ... ... I really don't know what to do to be honest, I mean, I was looking forward to clearing my name and getting back into the fight, but the two things that ruined it, Barriss, who I thought was my friend, and the masters, I mean, to Plo's credit, he did apologise, but Saesee, Ki and Mace, the way they tried to put a positive spin on that total clusterkark of the situation, they spent about five minutes considering my case, followed up nothing ... I just don't feel safe with them any more, I thought the Jedi council was supposed to be better than that. ... And Barriss ... I just ... "

Her dad nodded saying "When your enemy hurts you that's business, when your own friends hurt you ... Well, you're welcome to stay, but you'll need to help around the village while you're here."

Ahsoka nodded saying "well, whether you want droids fixing or lunch killed, I'm your girl."

"Okay, although at the moment we're under a hunting ban, our game stocks are low again."

This is something else that had to change as mortality at all ages dropped, the growing population had to stop hunting every now and then to allow their prey animals to build up in numbers again or risk hunting them to extinction.

Ahsoka nodded. She then asked "where's mum? Does she still live here?"

"She does, but she's been chasing this job vacancy, it's taken her off-world, she's confident she's in with a chance, it's with Harranite Temp Agency, they're seeking to recruit personal department managers," said Ahsoka's dad.

"Hope it works out then," said Ahsoka.

* * *

"I think that just about covers it," said Luminara.

"Okay, in that case I will take my leave, thank you General Unduli,"" said Tarkin as he stepped out of view.

"Decision, you have reached?" asked Yoda.

Luminara looked to Yoda asking "Regarding?"

"A new padawan, for your mentorship."

Luminara nodded. Right, a new padawan, she was looking through initiate files leading up to the trial, now Barriss seemed to be of little need of Luminara's supervision.

Or so Luminara had thought.

She then shook her head saying "Not yet. I don't even know how I karked up my last one."

"You do realise that the only person responsible for Offee's actions was Offee herself?" asked Obi-wan.

"Yea- ... well, ... " Luminara just couldn't put that feeling to rest.

"If you're not confident, I suppose we can leave it a while," said Obi-wan.

"Thank you," said Luminara.

"but at some point you'll have to do what we teach our initiates to do at entry levels, that is, overcome your fear and get in there," said Obi-wan, he then said "Speaking of ... If you'll all excuse me ... "

"Course of," said Yoda with a bow.

Obi-wan bowed back and headed out.

The holoconference ended and Luminara brought her injured hand in front of her, now dressed in bacta patches, and the datapad she had been reading before the start of the holoconference.

* * *

Ahsoka walked along the corridor in the Pelta class frigate and turned into the mess hall.

Sat at one of the tables was this Mirialan in a prison jumpsuit. As Ahsoka approached, she saw a familiar tattoo on the back of the mirialan's hand. Walking past her confirmed what she was seeing.

"Hello Ahsoka," said Barriss as she continued eating the overloaded plate of food.

Ahsoka eventually asked "Bit heavy innit?"

"Yeah, well, Poggle caused an incident when I was two and a half bites into my meal, food's been on my mind since I arrived in solitary. I won't miss the karker."

"Killed him?" asked Ahsoka.

"Yep," said Barriss, "Forgot how bad that brainworm was. Hearing his voice reminded me."

"I recall you wanted me to kill you back then," said Ahsoka, almost whistfully.

"And now you think you should have," speculated Barriss.

"Well ... would have saved Letta, several Jedi and a kark load of clones," observed Ahsoka.

"Yeah, it probably would have, for now. Is that why you made contact with me?"

Ahsoka looked surprised. "I made contact?"

Barriss chuckled briefly and said "part of you clearly wants to. We could address that."

Ahsoka nodded saying "Uh-huh. Well, I'm, like, a day old, so ... "

"Ahsoka, I can no longer continue my mission, I'm compromised, I'm out the fight. Lying to you now serves no purpose," said Barriss.

"Your mission. To, what was it? Punish the republic?" asked Ahsoka.

"No," said Barriss, she then explained "the objective was to drive the Grand Army to expel the Jedi Order from it's chain of command, because that's what's corrupting the order. That wouldn't be the only thing to do, but it would have been the essential first step."

"And that was worth the lives lost and the lives that would have been lost... including mine."

"Yes. You were the first convenient scapegoat. Purpose before desire," said Barriss.

"Makes it alright does it?" asked Ahsoka.

"No. But nothing's been alright since the first battle of Geonosis, I was operational for that one," said Barriss, "the council's been weak ever since then, you saw it when they expelled you."

"Yeah," said Ahsoka, nodding, "that's why I didn't go back when they offered to reinstate me."

"Good," said Barriss, "Stay out. Don't go back until they rediscover some ethics."

"What about the seperatists?" asked Ahsoka.

"They can't win. Even if they win the war, they're not going to last, their members have conflicting agendas, they treat new members like prisoners, or slaves, they're their own worst enemy. Only thing holding them together is Darth Sidious and Count Dooku. They're a karking joke."

Ahsoka nodded.

They then heard a scream and turned to see a view screen that had suddenly appeared. A gang of Zygerrians milled around until there was a clear view of a togruta woman, her arms being held out by two of them.

"Mum?" asked Ahsoka.

One of the Zygerrians punched her in the kidney and kicked her in her arse when she collapsed to her knees.

Barriss stood up looking at it. "I thought you were from Shili, your mum shouldn't have been caught up in that should she?"

"No," said Ahsoka, looking horrified as the pack of Zygerrians laughed, one of them grabbing her montrals, straining them painfully and manipulating her head a bunch of ways ignoring her pleas for them to stop, "is this real?"

"I think it is, watch carefully," said Barriss, scrutinising the scene, "do you recognise any of these from the Zygerria job?"

Another Zygerrian leaned across Ahsoka's mum and pulled her shirt open, abruptly following up with her bra, prompting a "NO!" from both Ahsoka and her mum.

"I know it's hard, but focus on the assailants, focus on the scene," said Barriss, then suddenly grousing "although this can be anywhere."

The scene got steadily worse, and Ahsoka eventually said "I don't recognise any of them ... ... " She started crying.

"And I'm in no position to help," said Barriss, "I'm sorry," she approached Ahsoka, placing a hand on Ahsoka's shoulder.

A part of Ahsoka remembered that Barriss had tried to frame Ahsoka for a capital offence, probably would have let Ahsoka die before calmly carrying on with her plans, but the rest of her accepted the consolance.

They watched through the scene, still hoping to get something useful from it. It took what felt like a day, watching the assailants exhaust themselves in their brutal abuse of their prisoner, and then watching them wander off, leaving the bruised and naked woman curled up on the floor amongst her torn clothing.

Barriss quietly whispered "Do you have any leads to follow here?"

Ahsoka nodded saying "Harranite Temp Agency, she's supposed to be applying for a position with them."

"Okay," said Barriss, "I'm waking up now, Ahsoka, stay with the light, however bad things get, stay with the light."

Ahsoka nodded and looked back.

Barriss was now gone.

* * *

Ahsoka's dad walked into the livingroom to see Ahsoka at the holoterminal. He approached and read "Harranite Temp Agency? Thinking of joining them?" with a chuckle.

"That's not a bad idea," said Ahsoka.

He nodded with a "Hm."

"I had a dream last night, but I think it was a vision. At least it felt like one."

"Yeah?" asked her dad, "What of?"

Ahsoka was about to answer, but she hesitated and eventually said "It could have been nothing more than a dream."

Her dad shifted in his pose and he asked "Alright, out with it, what are you trying to protect me from?"

Ahsoka hesitated again and then said "I saw Zygerrians."

"What?" asked her dad.

"I'm not telling you any more, not until I find out what's happening with her, you don't need those images in your head, you ... you just don't."

"Tell me she was alive at the end of ... whatever happened."

"Yes, she was alive," said Ahsoka, "I'm going to make sure she stays that way."

"I'm going to help," said her dad.

"No, if there's Zygerrians, this agency is a front chock full of highly violent goons," said Ahsoka.

"Ahsoka, you're too famous at the moment, they'll know you are force active and will have their game adapted for that."

"Dad, I'm not putting you in danger," said Ahsoka.

"You won't have to, I'm perfectly capable of putting myself in danger, thank you very much."

There was a knock at the door.

Ahsoka's 8yo brother answered the door and found the whole village crowded around the door, the current leader said "so are we. What affects one of us affects all."

Ahsoka smiled, feeling a warmth that had been absent since she was first arrested for Letta's murder.

"Okay, there is a chance they already be aware they have my mum, so we will have to be a bit more creative about your back stories, there is also a possibility they will be checking you for eavesdropping devices, so any electronic device that gets implanted, we'll need a story for that too that will cause them to leave it in." Ahsoka started talking details.

* * *

"You wanted to see me Master Skywalker?" asked Adon 'Shakas he approached Anakin where he sat in the library.

"Yes, I was reviewing your file, I noticed you were proficient in slicing and chemistry, are you looking forward to becoming a full knight?"

"I am, but I'm concerned my sabre skills may not be up to the challenge just yet, I am proficient in Forms 1,2, and 3, but form 4, well, ... " he spread his lekku so they could be viewed from the front, revealing thin scars that completely encircled his lekku.

Anakin winced at seeing the twi'lek's injuries. "well, if you lose a worm in the field, we'll probably have to leave it there, so stick with those three you know. You are now operational, Padawan 'Shakas."

"Thank you Master," he said, not expressing the excitement, not even in his force signature, "I will serve you well," with a bow.

Anakin felt disconcerted at his deference, but on paper, he was a good choice, slicing and chemistry were good skills to have if you had to improvise a weapon or sabotage or co-opt enemy equipment. The whole reason the council had given him Ahsoka was because she was impulsive and assertive, traits that ran most masters up the wrong way, but with Anakin sharing those traits even after graduating to full knight, it had been a good match.

"Okay," Anakin handed Adon a datapad saying "we got a job on Nar Shadaa, seppies are apparently trying to convince the Hutt that runs the place to side with them."

* * *

Barriss sat down at her chosen table with her food.

Poggle would no longer be around to trigger any more flashbacks, so that was good, but she hated the fact she was killing so many people. Poggle, she didn't need to kill, but that damn dialect of his, took her right back to that situation, she could feel that worm slithering up her nostril and coiling around inside her nasal cavity, and it's mind in hers, accessing all her memories, her skills, walking her around like an AT-AT walker. So fearful she had been of losing control again, that as soon as the worm in her nose had chilled enough for her to regain control, she begged Ahsoka to kill her, having her body being walked around and manipulated in that way was the absolute worst thing that had ever happened to her. Had these force suppression cuffs not been on her, Poggle would have been crushed into a perfect half metre cube.

He also tried to stick one of those worms up Luminara's nose.

Luminara. ...

Barriss hoped Luminara understood. Even if Luminara wanted Barriss dead, even if Luminara showed up at Barriss's execution with a HUGE bucket of popcorn, foam hand with 'Kill her' written on it, if Luminara understood that the Jedi order was going to a very dark place, that would be an improvement. The masters had to realise this and do something.

Ahsoka's commentary hadn't given her much hope of that, but at least Ahsoka seemed to understand.

Cad and Aurra sat down across from her, their plates unusually heavily loaded. Cad said "We've brought you some extra food."

Barriss took a moment to consider their offer and then nodded. The food could be poisoned, but that would have been a bit redundant in her case. Unless it was more to torture her instead of killing her outright, but Barriss didn't care anyway.

Still, there is possibly a reason why they're approaching her other than to hurt her.

"So, you hate the Jedi order now," started Cad as they started eating.

"I hate what they've become. I wanted to rescue the order, but ... " mused Barriss, she then asked Cad "do you and Aurra want my help with something? I'm grateful for the food, but ... ?"

"Well, Aurra and myself just find the decor here a little stale, we could do with a holiday, you know, get out, see the galaxy ... "

Barriss nodded and then placed a hand on the table, her fingers concealing her thumb from view of the guards. She moved her thumb in the shape of aurabesh characters to spell out words.

When it came time to reply, Cad did the same.

This was probably excessive paranoia, but the cuffs that suppressed Barris's force abilities probably included an eavesdropping device, because, why not?

The silent communication continued throughout their meal.

Barriss now felt better, she could get back in the game.


	2. New Crisis

Luminara's eyes were starting to hurt.

These initiates needed their mentors, and she could be one to one of them.

Had she learned everything she could from what she did with Barriss?

Luminara had taught Barriss to think things through, to argue for peace, against revenge, and yet Barriss had resorted to simple terrorism.

How would that make things better? Barriss should know that aggression only breeds aggression.

Attacking the temple and making the council feel vulnerable would only make them get darker would it not?

Perhaps Offee was suppressing her own opinions on matters such as the ethics of integrating the Jedi Order into the Grand Army.

There is no emotion, there is only peace.

There is no Passion there is only serenity.

These were important parts of the Jedi code, but perhaps Barriss was trying too hard to impress and secretly letting things get to her.

Damn it, this is the same circle she's been running the whole time.

Time to pick a Padawan.

Saul Whetari

Male Zabrak, forms 2 and 4 sabre combat profeciency, healer.

On paper, his ratings were similar to other consular path initiates, but there was something about this guy that spoke to Luminara's feelings.

The same feelings that had picked out Barriss Offee.

'for kark's sake, just go with it woman,' she told herself.

* * *

Ahsoka sat back, massaging her eyes.

"Time for a break?" asked the village doctor.

"I'd say so," said Ahsoka, "this is just the planning. Wait until we get to actually implanting the devices. Oh. And we have to manufacture and customise the karkers."

The doctor read through the current list of possible implants including pacemakers, sensory enhancement devices, the problems were that the devices that needed electronics tended to replace the functions of nervous systems.

"You know a lot of this is really dangerous stuff to be playing around with, the least consequential implants would be the pacemakers," said the Doctor, "is there a way we could at least prove something's wrong before we go ahead and do this?"

Ahsoka thinks this one over. She says "I could meditate, that has yielded results in the past, helped me stop Aurra slotting Padme. It's not reliable though. On that job there was a false alarm, I thought Aurra was seconds from killing Padme, turns out she wasn't, so there I was, stood over Padme on her bed, sabre lit, looking out for Aurra as Padme's guard filed in with that "are you on spice?" look plastered all over their faces."

The doctor chortled a little. He then said "That doesn't help much when it comes to proving or disproving this abduction."

"Yeah," replied Ahsoka. They then heard a Rodian voice outside. "Is that Greedo again?" asked Ahsoka as she got up. She then heard him use her brother's name. "Karking hell," she said as she ran out, the village doctor following close behind.

* * *

"Why would my mum send you to pick me up? Why wouldn't she come herself?" asked the Togruta kid.

"It'll take too long to explain, you just have to come with me," said Greedo.

"Where's the code word?" asked the kid.

"It's ... lekku?"

"There's no code word," said the amused kid.

"Okay, well," Greedo crouched down and put his hand around the handle of a blaster and whispered "if you want to love, you'll come with me quietly."

The child whispered back "If you want to conceal a conversation from a crowd of togruta all around you, you'll have to whisper quieter than that."

Oops.

Greedo looked around.

Every togruta in the village was glaring at him.

The ones on the wall were pointing their blaster rifles at him.

Some poo came out.

Greedo smiled.

Ahsoka walked into view and greeted him "Hello Greedo, still a moron are we?"

He looked down, annoyed to kark this had happened again, he then looked up asking "Is this your doing?"

Ahsoka arrived to within 2m of him and asked "is your lack of the sense possessed by a lightswitch my doing? No. All your own work. Wear it with pride. While you're doing that, maybe you want to explain what kind of nonce you've been hired by, because I can't think of any situation where a legitimate bounty might be issued against my brother."

"Your brother?"

"Karking ... ... " Ahsoka looked at the ground, massaging one of her forward lekku for half a minute. She then looked up at him and says "tell us who hired you, or we're just going to assume you're a nonce and inflict the traditional Shili penalty for molesting kids."

"What penalty?" asked Greedo, looking nervous.

"Oh, well, basically we restrain you to this steel mesh with wire, and we roast each of your limbs while you;re still alive over the course of four days, and ... we then eat them ... "

"That's crazy, I don't believe you!" replied Greedo.

"You'd think no sane society would do that, but Shili has it's ways, and there have been attempts by the odd politician to get that punishment banned, but that's always been soundly rejected and the proponent then never runs again because no one's going to sign a pertition for them ever again," said Ahsoka.

Ahsoka's brother then added "I've never eaten a Rodian before. Do they taste good?"

Greedo shat himself some more and said "Alright, there's this big green twi'lek, didn't give me his name, he recognised me from that job with those Pantoran girls, told me there'd be fifty thousand credits for me if I grabbed the kid for him, alright?"

"Well where the kark did he get my brother's name?" asked Ahsoka.

"I don't know, he didn't say, I only took the job because I was out of money."

Ahsoka looked thoughtful.

Ahsoka's dad asked "do you think this character may be related to what you saw in your vision?"

"Don't see why not," said Ahsoka, "Greedo, where was this guy?"

"Shili main intersteller," said Greedo.

"Okay," said Ahsoka, "I need someone with a camera to go there, link it into your comm., Greedo will point this guy out to us if he knows what's good for him."

* * *

"We're moving them to the secret facility on Naboo," said the clone trooper.

"Under whose orders?" asked the cloen captain.

"Tarkin's," said the clone trooper.

"Hang on," said the Cloen sergeant as he entered the details.

Barriss, Cad and Aurra stood there patiently in their restraints.

"Alright, proceed, but watch them, that Mirialan is just as lethal without force powers as with, alright?"

"Yes sarge," said the clone trooper, as he and his team moved the prisoners into the hanger to their spacecraft.

As they entered hyperspace, one of the clone troopers came back and unlocked Barriss's, Cads and Aurra's cuffs.

The fivee of them then handed over their weapons and stripped down to their pants and cuffed themselves to the seat.

At this point Barriss said "Okay, you two have your connections, so, you pick a world, I'll have a chat with these identical quints here."

"What kind of chat?" asked Cad.

"Oh, just something personal, they'll be alive at the end of it if you want to sell them to the separatists," said Barriss.

Cad and Aurra stood there not sure what to make of Barriss.

Barriss turned and said "You know, I could have just as easily had them stun the pair of you and left you to rot in solitary, and I didn't, so, trust me?"

"To a point," agreed Cad as he and Aurra continued back into the cockpit.

Barriss waited for the door to close and withdrew her mind control from the clones.

"We're not telling you anything, or your separatist friends," said their leader.

"I don't have separatist friends, they're as bad as the Republic's gotten, now, you know I got a mindworm shoved up my nose by one of you, to be fair he was possessed himself, what I would like to know, is what did he mean by "we clones know how to deal with Jedi?""

"Guess." Said the clone leader.

"Okay, I guess, that you're part of an elaborate trap, and when the seperatists are defeated, you lot will all stab the Jedi in the back, or shoot them in the back, would that be at all accurate?"

They stayed quiet, their force signatures betrayed a lot of stress.

"Yep. Thought so, so what's to stop me telling the order?"

"Why would they listen to you? You're the treacherous bitch who blew up their temple and framed another padawan," said the leader.

"Good point," said Barriss, she then asked "tell me about Tarkin, what level of protection does he normally have?"

"Kark off."

Barriss directed force telekinesis at his outermost toes, pulling them sideways, painfully sideways.

"We're not talking."

"Hmm, you know the higher your pain threshold, the more you'll have to be hurt by not just myself, but your separatist owners, right?"

"We'll NEVER break," said their leader.

Barriss smirked and started bending his next toe back.

* * *

"Remember Hardeen?" asked Aurra as the latest scream of raw agony subsided.

"Can't forget," said Cad, "I ignored the doubts I had then. I don't want to do that now."

"Kill her or lose her?" asked Aurra.

"Highly trained Jedi like her, don't want to trigger her danger sense, so we'll just lose her. Nar Shadaa's like Coruscant but with no coppers, so we'll go our separate ways there."

"Okay then."

* * *

"Twi'ethan, officially he's a talent scout for that temp agency," read Ahsoka.

"There's our confirmation," said the doctor.

"Right. ... " Ahsoka took a moment to say "this presents an opportunity, but I'm reluctant to ask."

"What? I'm up for it," said Ahsoka's brother. He added "Heart's been feeling a bit crap lately anyway."

"You sure? We can't be sure they won't mutilate you just to make a point, some of them Zygerrians, this Argus character, executed a bunch of prisoners just to warn Obi Wan on that Zygerria job."

"Them Zygerrians ain't going to stop themselves," he replied, "them karkers hurt me mum, no one does that. Me dad, sure, because he keeps hitting me across the Montrals."

Ahsoka's dad hit him across the montrals saying "Oi."

"See?" he said, rubbing his montrals.

* * *

"You know spicing that seperatist's drink with giggle dust just to make him offend the Hutt in charge seems like an un-jedi thing to do, you know?" said Adon as he and Anakin walked back to the spaceport.

"It was the least violent way to disrupt the meeting," said Anakin, "kark me, that rod up your ass has a rod up it's ass don't it?"

"Alright, fine, tough times call for tough solutions, just ... ... " Adon had trouble articulating himself.

They then saw a speeder floating along the street just ahead of them headed the other way with three familiar faces.

"Hey, isn't that-" started Adon, only to be cut off by Barris, Cad and Aurra drawing their weapons, forcing himself and Anakin to draw their sabres to defend themselves.

The speeder climbed out, only for Anakin to start leaping after it bouncing off the sides of the buildings to try and get overhead.

As they were just catching up, the speeder rolled through 180 degrees dropping five familiar looking male humans out.

Anakin changed direction, pushing himself down below them in order to catch them, Adon made a leap for the speeder only for Barriss to use force telekinesis to push him back to zero velocity, leaving him no chance to catch up.

"There goes our profit," groused Cad, looking back over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, you'd rather we get recaptured and taken back to jail?" asked Barriss.

"What are we supposed to do for money now then?" asked Aurra.

"Steal it?" asked Barriss.

Cad and Aurra looked at each other wondering if they had just heard Barriss say what thye think they heard her say and after deciding that yes they have heard Barriss suggest they steal the money they're after, Cad said "Barriss, there is a reason, people out here, don't steal off of one another. It's because anyone with anything worth stealing is capable of furious anger, and terrible vengeance against the thieves that hit them. Thus, no police force is needed."

Barriss slowly said "Ohhhhh-kay, you're the bounty hunters, how do you find work?"

* * *

"Out, how did Barriss get?" asked Yoda.

"Apparently the force cuffs were ineffective. They thought they were under orders from Tarkin to take the three of them to a secret facility on Naboo, they then ended up on Nar Shadaa ," replied Anakin over the holocomm.

"Idea what her plans are, have we?" asked Yoda.

The clone troop leader entered into view, limping on a heavily bandaged leg saying "she wanted to know about Admiral Tarkin's security, I think she wants Tarkin dead."

"That's odd," said obi Wan, "I would have thought she'd be after us, after all, it's us she's trying to punish for, 'falling from the light we once held so dear', I think she said."

"Outside the scope of her rage, he is not, but a feint, this may be. Contact Tarkin we must," said Yoda.

Before anyone could do anything else though, they could hear Tarkin shout "YOU TOTAL TWAT! HOW THE KARKING HELL DID YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE FOOLED BY THAT KARKING FALLEN JEDI?"

"Sounds like he knows Barriss is out," commented Obi Wan.

Yoda made the holocall.

Tarkin and the prison govenor appeared, Tarkin asking "WHAT?" almost exceeding the amplitude limits of the microphone input amplifier.

"Interrogated clones, Barriss has, interest in your security, she has shown," said Yoda.

"Oho, she wants me does she?" asked Tarkin with a maniacal grin, "well, that will save me the trouble of having to find her won't it."

"This could also be a feint," said Obi Wan, "She has more reason to hate Anakin, he's the one who caught her."

"Well, we should come up with a list of likely targets then," said Tarkin, "what's Unduli's take on this?"

"Checked in, she has not," said Yoda.

Suddenly Luminara's holocomm activated, Luminara apparently sat with the frame of a fighter around her she said "Sorry I took so long to answer, we got into a bit of a fight, what's the emergency?"

"Barriss broke out," said Mace, "she interrogated some clones about Tarkin's security, and was last seen on Nar Shadaa.

"Oh no. Okay, I wish I could tell you something, but odds are you've got the same answers I have," said Luminara, she looked pensive.

"No ideas at all?" asked Tarkin, "She's supposed to have been your padawan, wasn't she?"

"She was, but I didn't see the crimes she committed coming, and still don't understand her thinking on what those would do for her," said Luminara, "she's changed. I can't tell you anything of value at this time. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, we're just going to have to come up with a list of possible targets and cover them all," said Obi Wan.

"Meanwhile, Adon and me will stay on Nar Shadaa for the time being, see if we can reacquire Barriss or, failing that, get some idea what she's doing to prepare for her attacks."

"Approved, your course is," said Yoda, "with us, may the force be."

* * *

They dropped out of hyperspace.

"Hello, Nar Shadaa," said Ahsoka.

"What if my wife in't there?" asked Ahsoka's dad.

"They'll want to call her, we'll just have to slice into their comms gear," said Ahsoka.

"We'll have to do it quick," said Ahsoka's dad.

"Yes we will," said Ahsoka, she looked at the datapad, locating her brother's location as he was taken off the ship he was on, "Okay, I want you to take over, tailor our approach to overfly his position, I'll step off and follow them."

"Step off?" asked Ahsoka's dad.

"Force telekinesis, means I can slow myself down" said Ahsoka.

"Right, of course," said her dad.

They completed atmospheric entry and descended to about rooftop level, Ahsoka stood by the door watching her datapad. She was now wearing a long coat and an adapted hat with beads hanging from about halfway from the hole to the rim, this would conceal her face without making her look Jedi as a hooded cloak would. She was also packing two pistols and two knives, carrying them openly for ease of access as most Nar Shaddaa residents and nationals did.

As they got overhead, Ahsoka opened the door and stepped out, holding her hat with one hand and the datapad with the other. She used the standard high drag pose most of the way down, knowing she'd land in less than a minute. She switched to a Y pose as she started using force telekinesis to break her fall, landing in a back alley.

She started following the homing beacon, listening in.

As they apparently arrived at their destination, Ahsoka noticed a bunch of sentries hanging around the entrance of an alley Ahsoka might have used. Figuring there would be such sentries at all possible entrances, Ahsoka turned into an alley leading away from the compound and lept up bouncing off the walls to get overhead.

She then leapt ascross the street and identified a way down behind the building that would put her right behind the apartment.

She dropped down again, using the force to slow her down and grabbing the window heard the goon instructing her brother to sit down and shut up. He was going to contact his mum.

She had to get slicing now. She attached the pad to her belt and broke in through a window to an unused room, managing to maintain sufficient silence that she could sneak up on a fellow togruta. Noting there were goons asleep in the room, she checked the sound was off on her datapad before she started working on getting into their comms gear.

She gained access just in time, and followed the holocall as it was made.

She heard her mother use her brother's name.

"Now, you've proven that you'd rather get brutally tortured than help us catch more livestock, you can watch your son get brutally tortured instead."

"NO!"

Ahsoka stood up, trying to work out how to stop this without letting these guys know they've been compromised, but she couldn't think of a way. She sat back down, gripping one of her forward lekku as she kept thinking anyway.

"It's your own fault, these are the consequences, either you do what we want or we do something you don't want."

"You don't have to, I'll help you now, I will."

"I think I do, or else, how will you learn? You don't punish your kids for doing wrong and just keep threatening and threatening and giving last chances, and last last chances, and last last last chances, they walk all over you."

Ahsoka turned the volume of her comm. Right down low and contacted her dad. "You seeing this?"

"Yeah, and we've got a location, but they're on Nal Hutta, we won't have anyone there for hours."

"If I intervene down here ... "

"I know ... "

Ahsoka watched as Twi'ethan and another goon, a Weequay, tied her brother's hands to the back of the chair. They leant down and tied his feet too. He then opened a toolbox and started going through the tools, lifting a retractable knife, extending and retracting the blade, a ball peen hammer, a chisel, a rasp, tennon saw, some nails. They then looked at the tools thoughtfully.

"What do you reclon, pin the headtails? File down the montrals?"

Her brother subtly mouthed 'dad, I'm staying up 'till 3 in the morning after this.'

Ahsoka heard her dad say "No chance."

As the goons each took a head tail, still thinking about what to do with the kid, Ahsoka's brother mouthed 'Also, I get to drink Twi'lek Liquor and watch porn.'

"Kark off," was Ahsoka's dad's response.

Ahsoka for her part couldn't believe her brother was trying to guilt trip concessions out of their dad in the middle of an operation where he was about to get tortured to punish their mum.

Twi'Ethan eventually picked up the knife and extended the blade and grabbed one of the kid's forward lekku, slowly massaging the head tail as he thought about what kind of cut he would make.

Ahsoka's brother was now just bracing for the pain, Ahsoka's mum looked away only for one of the Zygerrians at her end to grab her montrals and point her head back at the screen, another pulled her eyes open asking "Do we need to cut your eyelids out?"

"I'm so going to hurt these guys," commented Ahsoka.

"You'd best not," Ahsoka's brother told the Zygerrian.

This prompted Twi'Ethan to start his incision, slowly poking his knife into the kid's lekku.

The scream rang in Ahsoka's montrals and woke up the sleeping goon. Ahsoka noticed the guy waking up and used force telekinesis to close his carotid artery, waiting for him to fall asleep.

The goon fell asleep, leaving Ahsoka with the grim task of sitting there waiting for the torture of her brother to end.

Twi'Ethan pushed the knife deep into the lekku's tip, making a deep cut all the way to the tip.

He then looked around to the kitchen coutner and picked up a salt container, opening the spout. He flexed the lekku so that the wound would be open and dropped some salt into it.

He then told his Weequay partner "Hand me the vinegar would you?"

His partner complied and handed him a vinegar bottle, Twi'Ethan removed the lid and started shaking vinegat into the salt crusted wound. Ahsoka's brother vomited shortly into this phase, and Ahsoka felt close to doing this herself.

Eventually Twi'ethan asked for a bacta patch and when the Weequay provided it, he placed it onto the wound tellin Ahsoka's mum "think that will do for now. Remember, whatever we do, there's always worse we can do. So be a good little slave, and bring us more slaves, alright?"

"Yes," said Ahsoka's mother, starting to cry.

Ahsoka decided now would be a good time to get out closing the window behind her, and get onto the roof.

She found a secluded spot and tried to clear her head, but all she could see and hear was what had been done to her brother.

"Ahsoka?" asked her dad.

"Yeah?" replied Ahsoka.

"We've sent a recon team to Nal Hutta now, what do you want to do here? Can we stage ourselves in the building?"

Ahsoka thought and said "Give me a few minutes, then I'll start exploring, out."


	3. New Lows

Anakin and Adon saw Cad and Aurra complete the procurement of their spacecraft. Anakin prepared a tracking device and waited for the spacecraft to lift off and then used force telekinesis to project it into the landing gear well before the landing struts retracted.

"I didn't see Barriss on that ship."

"Doesn't mean she isn't on there, just means we didn't see her get on."

"Or she's not."

"Yeah ... You follow the ship, see where it goes, I'm going to see if Barriss is still here," said Anakin.

"Okay," said Adon.

* * *

Barriss had swapped her prison suit for some really skimpy clothing, pink tube top, black latex microskirt, fishnet stockings, moderately high heeled boots, her hair was on multiple ponytails in yellow hairbands.

She entered a street with a load of similarly dressed women of various species all standing around waiting.

A Twi'lek noticed Barriss and told her "Kark off, there's not enough customers to go around."

"Or what?" asked Barriss.

The twi'lek turned to a zeltron and said "Call him."

The Zeltron pulled a comm. And started talking to someone on the other end as the Twi'lek said "Tert Oransa, our pimp, he'll be here in minutes, so you'd best not."

Barriss stood there wordlessly.

Eventually this Weequay man showed up and walked up to Barris asking "This is our intruder?"

"Uh-huh," said the Twi'lek, "thought she could just show up and horn in she did."

He then addressed Barriss saying "If you want to work on MY street, you will need to train with ME, because I want repeat custom."

Barriss smirked saying "I could probably teach your bitches a thing or two, hundred," as she leaned in, bringing her hands up to his sides.

He grabbed Barrisses throat and squeezed.

Barriss offered no resistance, continuing to feel the Weequay up.

"Hmm ... Alright then, I'm going to take you back to my place, see if you're up to my standards," he turned Barriss around and pulled her tube top up, he kicked the back of one of her knees to force her into a kneeling position so that he didn't have to reach to high to get it completely off, the next move was to loop it around Bariss's neck twisting it around a couple of times, and then yanking her up to a standing position, pulling the garment over his shoulder so she was facing backwards, pinned against his back as he walked off, having to pull on the garment to keep her airway open.

The whores on the street waved at Barriss, chuckling and saying "Bye bye, honey." They then got back to strutting around waiting for customers.

Barriss considered briefly she should have worn a bra under her tubetop after all, but then she is using wannabe whore as her cover, so ...

Still, likely side effect of her plans would kill him, so no need to go out of her way to get even.

* * *

With the ship landed, and both Aurra and Cad having been seen leaving, Adon boarded the ship to try and locate Barriss.

It didn't take long, the ship was a five seater plus a couple cube metres of cargo plus a bog (not enclosed for some reason).

"This ship must have gone cheap," said Adon as he stepped off the ship.

Coming face to face with Cad and Aurra.

"Hello," said Cad, his hands on his pistols, Aurra more relaxed nearby with her arms folded, but her force signature betrayed a more alert state. She'd have her pistols out before Adon's sabre was fully lit if they kicked off.

Adon asked "What are you two doing collaborating with a nutter like Barriss?"

"We're not. Not any more," said Cad, "We ditched her."

"Fully trained Jedi gone bad? Why would you chuck that out?"

"Like you said, she's a nutter. You're new to this aren't you?" asked Cad.

"Um .. .Yes. I'm Anakin's Padawan."

"Are you now? What happened to the other one, the togruta?" asked Cad.

"She quit, she was charged with sedition, and was cleared when Anakin found Barriss had done it, Ahsoka and Barriss were friends up until that point," said Adon.

"Really? Guess Jedi are weaker of will than I heard. I wouldn't stop chasing bounties just because a partner turned on me."

"There is also the matter of the council expelling her so that the military could have a go, that's probably the clincher," said Adon.

"If that's how the Jedi treat their own, why are you still in the order?"

"I haven't lost faith. Even if the council has problems, the principle of the order is still a worthy goal."

"How very noble. Now, how about you get the kark out of here and never cross my path again on pain of death after a lot of pain being administered by a separatist interrogator who is always happy to pay handsomely ... " Cad then got this look of hunger on his face whenever he thought of money and said "Actually ... "

Adon decided not to hang around, he used a telekinesis assisted leap to get well clear of Cad and Aurra.

Aurra said "You did have a good point right there, you know that don't you?"

Cad replied "Yeah, but this one we're on pays even more with less risk to us. Let's go."

They both boarded their ship.

* * *

"You're not ready yet, stupid slut, you probably didn't even earn those tattoos did you? Just had them done to look cool to all your Mirialan friends. Well, you'd better prove worth my time tomorrow or there's a slaughter house I know that disposes of sentients and pays you for their trouble."

The pimp fell onto his bed and was asleep almost immediately.

Barriss was happy about one thing and one thing only: This guy hadn't the faintest idea she was force active. She used telekinesis to bring his datapad over to where she was chained up, he had left her in a collar chained to a ring in a corner of the room near the door to the bathroom, right on the floor so her ass was presented for convenient use, her hands were restrained further up the corner, but that wasn't a problem, she could manipulate the pad just fine with telekinesis.

This was going exactly as planned. She just hoped he was done feeding her the contents of used condoms that had been lying in the bin for kark knows how long, that shavit was rank.

* * *

Ahsoka got the last member of this team into the apartment and was about to close the window when Anakin landed there and entered.

"Anakin? What are you doing here?"

"Chasing Barriss," said Anakin, sounding irate, "you're not helping her are you?"

"No, I didn't even know she was out," said Ahsoka.

"So what are you doing here then?" asked Anakin.

There was a knock at the door.

All the Togruta in the room stopped what they were doing (be it drilling a hole for a camera or building frame charges) looked at each other, unsure what to do.

There was another knock and someone asked "you awake in there? I need my fix."

Ahsoka looked to the equipment and crates of spice in the room, there was three additional crates filled with little bags, and a compartmentalised tray filled with credit chips of various values. She signalled one of the team to answer the door, there was a viewing panel in the door, he opted to use that.

"Who are you?" asked the customer.

"We're the new spice dealers, the old ones went out of business."

"Okay, okay, whatever, I want a medium and two smalls."

He looked down and worked out which ones he meant, he picked up the bags and held them up, holding out a hand for the payment. The customer handed him some credit chips and took the bags and left.

The peep hole shut, Ahsoka turned to the team mate that was drilling through the floor, who resumed what he was doing.

"What is going on here Ahsoka?" asked Anakin.

"There's a pack of Zygerrians on Nal Hutta, they've got a number of Togrutian slaves including my mum, they abducted my brother and brought him here to compel her to help them with their temp agency scam. We're going to have to hit both places simultaneously, but ... "

Anakin extended his force sense downstairs, and picked up a young togruta child in serious pain and three evil sentients below.

"Until we get a full picture and work up a DPA for both places, my brother has to stay in position in case the Zygerrians on Nal Hutta call again," said Ahsoka.

This was a relatively small scale operation compared to the last time Anakin and Skywalker had to deal with the Zygerrian Empire.

"Anything I can do?" asked Anakin.

"No, we've got this, I'm going to go to Nal Hutta, join the team we've sent there, you should stick with finding Barriss, I accidentally contacted her in a force vision before she broke out. She didn't indicate she was planning on getting out back then, but she did reveal what she was trying to accomplish. She wants the Jedi Order out of the GAR, and she's determined to make that happen. Now she thinks she has another chance to do that, she's ... ... "

"Okay. ... Force be with you Ahsoka," said Anakin as he headed back out.

* * *

Ahsoka's mum felt happy.

She was conscious that this was down to the giggledust her food had been spiked with, and that without it, she'd be clawing at her own arms, crying her eyes out, but aside from no harm coming to her son, this was apparently another reward for her co-operation.

Along with having her own room.

She'd still have to submit to any sexual abuse any Zygerrian that drops by, but they would not use violence on her provided she kept co-operating. The who was gently making love to her would make the memory vile as kark, but this was what Zygerrians did for courtesy towards their slaves.

Deep down, she knew that once she came off the giggledust, she'd be disgusted at herself for enjoying these benefits.

But how the karking hell did they get her son? Her family lived on the corner of no and where, anyone these characters send should have stood out, unless ... ...

Unless they had Togruta working for them of their own volition.

Or they just had a really good cover story.

Or they caught him while they were doing Home Guard exercises. This home guard program was a supplement to the normal hunting skills that was on the global curriculum of Shili anyway, hunting enemy soldiers was different from hunting Akhuls, for one thing, Akhuls don't shoot back, for another, they don't operate powered vehicles.

There's also comms gear.

Still, as long as she was helping the Zygerrians, she should be trying to find a way to kark them over without bringing harm to her son.

But what did she have?

She knew there was a landing pad for spacecraft, she had arrived through that after changing from the spaceliner on Nal Hutta, it was in the middle of a forest, hence the high walls and ray shields (or so she had thought initially), there was an arrivals lounge, everyone was completely inside that before the spacecraft left and the Zygerrians showed their faces.

The landing pad and arrivals lounge were on the roof of a hanger which was connected to additional hangers that had been modified, there were three of them, a disused runway with trees growing out of it, the ruins of a control tower, perimeter fence enclosing the whole thing was a triple fence with radial fences that had holes that you'd have to stoop to pass through, but their attack beasts could just run through ...

Inside the hanger, there were wire fences walling off a dormitory, a shower area, luke warm water (wouldn't do for the livestock to catch something because they were constantly hyporthermic), and an area where clothing was issued and returned by slaves moving to the other hangers which was where they conditioned the slaves to carry out intensive manual labour without question.

They even had slaves manufacturing shock collars for use by prespective new owners.

That could be an opportunity for sabotage, except the Zygerrians were just too good at quality assurance.

Four slaves were slowly starving in a fenced off area near the sleeping area, they were emaciated by the time Ahsoka's mum had arrived, and she could well imagine them being near death if not fed soon.

She had nothing of use to her. You can't hide anything, there's no cover that can conceal anyone approaching any of the guards, everyone there would be totally dependant on someone attacking from outside.

The problem was the initial warning before they had her son was that if they were compromised, they would blow the whole place up.

So anyone attacking the place would have to find and make safe the bombs, if they exist. Which she had to assume they did.

Of course for putting these guys out of business, this could be worth it.

* * *

"Fly by recce using passive sensors gave us a layout of the compound to which the call was directed, all the buildings are heated above ambient, but we're seeing no sentries outside. Fences have attack animals inside, so, crawling up could be a problem. There are additional heat sources that seem to be electronic devices, we think cameras and other sensors."

Ahsoka nodded and asked "does anyone have eyes on the facility yet?"

"I've sent three teams to vantage points around the compound, that could give us something, but we really need to get inside those walls."

Ahsoka thought and said "We could use a droid, they have the same heat signature of a life form, so it should just be another rodent to their sensors, but to stop it being detected, it would have to store the data and bring it back to us itself."

"It's not just RF emissions that can give a droid away, if they use X-ray spectrometry or magnetic anomaly detectors, it's hard to hide that there's a power source and computer on board."

"Yeah ... " Ahsoka sat back thinking that one over. She eventually said "No other way. We can only go so far before risk mitigation becomes paralysis, can you start on this yourself? I'm still four hours away."

"Yeah, we got the parts we need. There is another issue, what should we be thinking for weapons? The least emissive weapons are bows and crossbows, but the rate of fire is well shavit."

"We'll make an assessment when we have the intel, off hand, I'd say we use suppressed slug throwers, subsonic rounds for our primary, back that up with blaster pistols."

"Okay. Talk more when you get here, out."

The holoimage shut down and Ahsoka relaxed back in her seat.

This is a situation where Jedi generally find they have problems with the Jedi Code and the practical reality of a hostage siege.

She had seen what these Zygerrians were all about. Hearing Obi Wan's description of his arrival where the first thing Agruss did was drop about 20 slaves through trap doors to the crater floor hundreds of metres down ...

There was no other way, once the Zygerrians become aware of the presence of the rescue team, they would have seconds to kill every Zygerrian there before the Zygerrians start killing slaves. This would be full on, shoot first, second, third, don't stop shooting these guys until all the slaves are free or until all the Zygerrians are dead or they run out of ammo.

But they had to get this right. They would have to be absolutely sure of the layout, of their plan, there was just so much potential for this to go disasterously wrong. They could find themselves freeing no slaves and burying all of them.

Ahsoka fell asleep.

* * *

"Nice threads," said Barriss as she approached the holotable from the other side.

Ahsoka looked up from the holograph of the Zygerrian slaver's compound and said "Thanks. And back at you, that cloak always made you look a bit ... well, excessively formal."

"Well, as a Jedi ... ... " Barriss shrugged, realising they were both no longer in a position to talk about being Jedi any more. Barriss asked "I take it that's the slaver's compound."

"Yes," said Ahsoka.

"Anything on the inside?"

"Not yet, should have more by the time I get there."

"Who are you using for help on this?" asked Barriss.

"My family's village, as you know we already have this hunting culture, combined with the homeguard training, I think we're in with a chance."

"But that means preserving the element of surprise, sneaking in and firing the first shot. That bothers you," said Barriss.

"Yes," said Ahsoka.

"That's the dilemma I faced when ... " Barriss trailed off, Ahsoka raising her head to look at Barriss again. Barriss nodded saying "I'm probably not the best example to be putting forth. ... I have read the same intel you have, including the parts you wrote, and without direct experience, I don't see a choice for you. If you want the slaves freed, you will need to start the fight on your terms."

"I know," said Ahsoka."It helps that they have this coming," she added.

"hmm," mused Barriss, "you will be walking a fine line here. I hope this works out."

"I wish I could wish the same for you," said Ahsoka. She looked at Barriss a bit more seriously and asked "Barriss, you're not going to kill any more Jedi are you?"

Barriss was unreadable as she hesitated before saying "I'm sorry I can't give any assurances at this time. If they stay out of my way, they'll be fine."

"And, where is your way?" asked Ahsoka.

Barriss hesitated again, she clearly wanted to give Ahsoka something to reassure her, but eventually said "I'm sorry, that's not something I can comment on just yet."

Barriss then walked off and faded, presumably waking up wherever she was.


	4. New Problems

Tert had been silent a while, so Barriss was now confident she was dancing right.

Apparently, "having sex is one thing, inviting it is another," so, the whole day was dedicated to stripping off interrupted by the occasional blowjob.

Barriss eventually glanced at the clock on the bedside table and suddenly stopped dancing saying "Ooh, that's it," she then turned to Tert saying "gotta dash," as she started putting her clothes back on.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I've got a delivery to pick up," said Barriss.

"I thought you wanted to be a whore," said Tert.

"Yeah, but that took too long to train for, so, thanks for having me around," said Barriss.

"No, hang on," Tert said, grabbing Barris's arm, trying to pull her back into the centre of the room.

Trying, but suddenly moving her around was like trying to drag a building by one of it's steel columns.

Barriss looked at him saying "I'm afraid I can't bring you along," before she kicked his legs out from under him and hooked an arm around his neck. Using force telekinesis to boost her strength as opposed to using it straight up could delay anyone figuring out she was force active for a little bit longer.

She positioned Tert in the corner and cuffed his hands to the point her hands had been attached to all night.

"You're going to pay for this you bitch."

"You'll have to catch me first," said Barris as she finished cuffing his hands and secured his neck to the point her neck had been secured to. She then checked the drawers and retrieved a gag harness. He clenched his jaw. So Barriss had to press down on his carotid artery for a couple of minutes, knocking him out, before she put the gag in.

She then pulled his speeder keys out of his pocket and walked out saying "bye bye," getting in the speeder and heading for the spaceport.

* * *

Ahsoka landed ant met with the village Home Guard captain at their chosen command post, an abandoned boozer someone had built out here. There was no obvious reason why they would build it out here because there was no evidence there was ever any foot traffic.

They had rigged the holographic system that would have, according to the stickers in the window, received holographic broadcasts of sporting events, to serve as their main tactical map display.

There was more detail now than there had been earlier.

There were tracks that according to the key were pathways, some doors had been marked, some of them up in the air indicating additional levels.

"we think that there are a lot of open areas on the ground floor, but we can't be sure until we get in there, it's the upper levels that concern me the most, we don't know what those are, they could be barracks, they could be training rooms for sex slaves, we think this area here could be a slave dormitory because there's footsteps leading up to here and then just disappearing, so we think slaves are being made to return their boots when they come back inside."

"What sensors have we been using?" asked Ahsoka.

"Passive acoustic," said the captain, sly grin, he tapped his montrals saying "Like what we use." He then said "still, as you can see, the data we can get from that is limited. We are now confident we can get our droids all the way up to the walls, and we're now confident we can have the droids send data out optically, but to send commands to them optically or in any electromagnetic way could be picked up by their sensors."

Ahsoka nodded. "Okay, try and get cameras through the outer walls, if we're lucky, they'll be more concerned about watching the slaves than defending against attackers, if they can see their slaves from any point inside the building, then we can see, and shoot, the guards."

* * *

Barriss checked the straps on the final item and said "Yep, that's good, thanks," and the final delivery crew stepped off the ship.

She now closed the loading ramp and ran for the cockpit of the Envoy Class Shuttle. She didn't really have time to check everything on board would function properly, that was going to have to wait until she was in the depths of space nowhere near anything interesting enough for her to possible be interested in visiting.

And there was no way she could ever visit a Hutt world ever again. Not after this.

* * *

"Why would we care that this rogue Jedi of yours could be out to attack Republic worlds?" relayed the protocol droid from the Hutt in charge.

"The CIS are run by the Sith, Darth Sidius and Darth Tyranus, yeah?" started Anakin Skywalker, "And you recall the shavit Darth Tyranus pulled having Jabba's son abducted, and tried to fit us up for it, if the CIS win, they won't stop, they'll take your worlds too, whereas the Republic won't."

The Hutt seemed to ponder this, but then said something else, which the protocol droid translated into "We will make some inquiries and get back to you if it suits us."

Anakin nodded saying "Mmm-hmm, okay, thank you for your co-operation," as he turned around and started out, not really feeling the sincerity of the Hutt's pledges. As he was heading out, the Hutt's goons were dragging this Weequay man in who was protesting his innocence, the words blurring in Anakin's mind until they started to include "Mirialan" and "bitch."

"Oi, hang on," said Anakin to the goons and the Weequay, "This Mirialan bitch of yours, this high," held his hand about where the top of Barris's head would be off the ground, "diamonds tattooed across her nose?"

* * *

"Three million rounds of 30mm DSDU rounds?" read Obi-wan.

"Combine that with an ion gun and a beryllium plate, which Barriss has about 30 kilos of, there's a good chance she's going to make some nuclear weapons," said Anakin, "not seeing any cast high explosives in here, she just has the propellant from the cartridges."

Mace Windu read more of the list, "forcefield generators, hyperdrive engines, navigation computers ... Antiviral drugs? ... Antibacterial drugs? ... STI Testing kit?" Mace looked up.

"Apparently she was karking this pimp while she was karking him over, kark knows what she could have caught off of him."

"Oi, I resent that," said the pimp out of view, "I can't be infected because I'm not gay, alright?"

Anakin gave a look off to the direction from which the pimp's voice had originated, wearing a "are you really that stupid? For real are you actually, genuinely that karking stupid?" He then turned his attention back to the masters council saying "This is a whole new level for her, chemical explosives is one thing, they blow things up, cause a fire, if Barriss is using nuclear weapons, that's going to be killing people long after the explosion. Luminara, what can you tell me?"

Luminara was appearing via holocomm too, she could barely stand straight as she thought long and hard about what Barriss might be playing at. She eventually said "The dark side corrupts, I'd like to say she wouldn't use these things on a world like Corouscant, would at least limit her use to targets ... I'm sorry, I can't rule anything out."

"A disaster, karking, this is," commented Yoda.

"A day that makes Yoda swear, that's a bad day," observed Obi Wan.

"Alright Anakin, there anything more you and Adon can achieve there in your estimation?" asked Mace.

"No, I think we're done here," said Anakin, "we're going to return to the temple and hit the library, Barriss spent enough time on operations, there's got to be something in the archives."

* * *

Luminara was uncharacteristically tired as she sat against the holotable on the bridge. Saul was stood next to her, watching her.

He eventually asked "Master?"

Luminara looked to him asking "Yes?"

"Forgive me for saying this, but, ... you don't seem like I was expecting you to be."

"How so?" asked Luminara.

"Well, you look so tired all the time, it's like ... "

"Yes, it's because of Barriss, of how I failed to ... I don't know what I failed to do here, did I fail to teach her right or did I fail to spot something obviously wrong with her, or what?"

"Hmm," Saul mused. He then suggested "perhaps you reveled in your pride in her achievements to the point where you couldn't what was happening."

Luminara nodded saying "Yeah, that sounds right."

"Would you like to hear my working out master?"

"Sure," said Luminara.

"Okay, Barris, was a deceitful slag, who used her illusion of perfection to deflect blame away from her. I'm sure if I ever make it to being a mentor to my own padawan, and I do a good job of it, I too may find myself putting my padawan on a pedestal. Getting serious for a minute Master, ... snap out of it already."

Luminara nodded saying "I tell you what I haven't done. I haven't talked to Barriss myself. And there are ways available to Jedi to talk without having to find each other. Take control Saul, I'm going meditate for a while."

* * *

Barriss stood in the temple library, looking through this holographic image of the galaxy, wearing an EVA suit minus the helmet.

"Hello my Padawan."

Barriss looked to her side and saw Luminara, dressed same as ever.

"Master," acknowledged Barriss, not bothering to bow as once she might have.

"What can all this possibly serve? I was certain I had taught you better," said Luminara.

"I'm sure your master could say the same," said Barriss, "I mean come on, general, Jedi, supposedly independent of any one government, now integrated into an army, one I might add we were tricked into accepting."

"That has been bothering me, but we're in the middle of a war now, and we can't let the seperatists win," said Luminara.

"And I don't think either side should win, at least not outright, there should be a ceasefire, soon," said Barriss,she eventually added "And I just don't trust the clones. When those worms were getting into people's heads, the one that got inside me tapped into my skills and knowledge, and the ones that got up the clones noses tapped into their skills and knowledge."

"This is that thing you kept out of your report that you mentioned to me," said Luminara.

"And your response was to mention I should have included it in the report and mentioned it sooner," said Barriss.

"I did also take your point," said Luminara.

"Yes, but what have you been able to do with it?" asked Barriss.

"Nothing. As of yet," said Luminara.

"Well, you're sure living up to your vow of industry, aren't you?" commented Barriss.

"Good to see you living up to your vow of respect," said Luminara.

"There is a serious danger of this disintegrating into a rap battle here," commented Barriss.

"Who needs a rap battle, let's just slag each other off without the music," said Luminara.

"Well, aside from your inaction, I do understand why you're resistant to the idea of doing what I did, honestly, I don't like that I hurt you the way I did, there was just no way around it."

"You expect similar feelings from me?" asked Luminara.

"Not really."

"Well I karked up somewhere, you're completely convinced you are on the right course of action, didn't I teach you better than simple terrorism?"

"Yes, you did," said Barriss, she smiled at a memory of some of their missions together. "You remember that Hutt world we did?"

"Oh yeah, Mondo Mod, we needed intel off of him, he wanted me to fight his gladiators for it, thought I'd get my arse kicked," said Luminara.

"Then we cleaned him out for good measure," added Barriss.

"Good times," chuckled Luminara.

"Yeah," reminisced Barriss, "guess those days are over now. If I give up like you want, best case, or worst, depending how much you'd ... well, stay on the run or surrender for execution, those days are so many kinds of over now."

"That didn't have to happen you know," said Luminara.

"I Know. I just lacked the imagination for a better way," said Barriss, "I can't return, and I can't stop either. I'm sorry master," said Barriss. Barriss then faded, leaving Luminara stood in the Jedi library. Luminara remembered where Barriss was looking at the map of the galaxy.

There was one system in that general area that was of significant strategic value to the Republic.

Correllian Run, left at Ryloth, Death Wind Corridor, continue past Roon through Rishi ...

* * *

"Not just Togruta in there, they got Rodians, Zabraks, no Twi'leks oddly," said the Home Guard captain.

"Must be a prestige thing," commented Ahsoka, "that second level's boxed in, but most of that is well ope ... " Ahsoka started paying attention to the top of the screen. She pointed at the grid of plastic drums hanging from the ceiling and said "focus on that would you?"

The graphics operator did.

The drums were not labelled, but from the beam clamp plate it hung from a brightly coloured chord.

This chord continued from that drum in both directions along the beam to the next two.

There was also a thin grey wire, it was not tightly wound as you'd expect an electrical wire, indicating an optical line.

"We need a look down at those," said Ahsoka, "I don't think that's rope those drums are hanging from."


	5. New Deadline

Barriss switched her attention back to where the droids she had bought were running the depleted uranium sabots through the neutron beam, then dissolving them, then chemically separating the neptunium and plutonium from the depleted uranium.

Even in this day and age, manufacturing a nuclear weapon was a pain in the arse process. For one thing you had to watch how long you exposed the material for or you could add more neutrons to the same atom than you intended. She had calculated the exposure to turn about 20% of the uranium into neptunium, and the 80% that stays uranium would be separated and sent through again.

This was going to burn through a lot of hyperdrive fuel, but this was the best way to do it without actually building a breeder reactor, which, of course, requires either a bigger ship, or real estate, and yet more materials to construct the reactor itself. There was just no reason to do that when this way worked fine and cost far less.

Another thing Barriss had decided not to bother with was the chemical explosives most conventional nuclear weapons designs called for.

Who needs explosives, after all, when you have inertia?

The weapons developed by the civilisations that developed them all went through more or less the same evolutionary pathways. The first tends to be a gun type, that is a supercritical sphere divided between a ring and a plug, because that's the simplest to design. You don't even need high explosives, most slugthrower propellants would do, hell, compressed gas would do.

It just wasn't very loud. There was am inherent limit imposed by the geometry of the ring and the plug. The next logical step was always the implosion type.

A hollow ball of fissionable material surrounded by plastic or cast high explosives, two types shaped to focus the detonation wave. The math was simple enough, but the explosives and fissionable material need precision machining and the data needs to match the explosive composition spot on.

And, there's a limit on how loud that can get too. The limitation was the result of the thickening of the shell during the implosion going supercritical before full implosion.

Step 3: Two stage weapon.

At this point you start using a lithium hydride charge in conjunction because you're now putting out enough energy to cruch a much larget charge, in this case it's a linear implosion device, a pipe of fissionable material.

Radiation pressure created by the first device crushes a tamper that surrounds the LiH which in turn surrounds the second stage fissionable charge.

After this step, there isn't much more that can be done. More stages could make a bigger bang, but then you're throwing most of your energy into space. Nuclear weapons design stops evolving after this point and remain as they have for the hundreds to tens of thousands of years they have existed on the worlds that developed them.

As far as Barriss knew, she was doing something no one had done before. The idea behind her weapon was that a series of mildly conical plates would be weakly attached to the inside of an evacuated tube. This tube is traveling in hyperspace and protected by a forcefield. On impact, the plates slam into each other forming a mass three critical radii thick and twenty in diameter.

If this don't do it, Barriss would have to find a world where she could show her face without having a blaster shot kiss it.

She turned her attention back to the other weapon she was working on. The crystals were almost done growing.

Whatever happens, lightsabres always make things better.

* * *

"I think she wants to attack Kamino," said Luminara.

She was in conference with the council over a holocomm.

"What makes you so sure?" asked Mace.

"It's the clones, Barriss thinks they're a trap," said Luminara.

"That would be the Terentatek in the room we've never been able to consider," said Obi Wan.

"She could certainly destroy the cloning facilities on Kamino if she could get her weapon through," said Obi Wan, "a staged weapon, even with no fusion fuel, could do it."

"We already defend against that," said Mace.

"She could think she has a chance," said Luminara, but looks pensive.

"What?" asked Obi-wan, noting Luminara's look.

"I don't know. I'm sure it's Kamino she's after, but so far Barriss has been in the habit of misdirecting us," said Luminara, "she must know that Kamino is heavily defended, so how would she get her nuke past defences set up specifically to counter that?"

"Very recent, Barriss's intelligence picture, of Kamino, about that, done something can be?"

"Can the Kaminoans pack up their facilities and leave Kamino?" asked Obi-wan.

"No," said Mace, "this is something we studied. We also studied distributing production between multiple sites, but we barely have the money to continue as things are."

"I think I should go to Kamino, see what Barriss sees," said Luminara, "we're missing something important here."

"approved, your journey," said Yoda.

* * *

"That's a detonator," said Ahsoka, "that tube, looks like shock tube, air and HMX typically, box has that optical line, no way to tell if it has any antennae."

The drum was indeed being held up by det-chord, it had a lump of some kind of plasticised lump mached around it and a detonator was poking into it, the box was resting on the top of the drum. The shock tume Ahsoka had pointed out would basically maintain the shockwave from a charge inside the firing box as it travelled along the HMX. It would only work if there was a blast at the start end, burning it, hitting it with a hammer, would not work. It was used in explosive engineering because unlike wires, it was insensitive to radio frequencies, and unlike optical command lines, it couldn't break from mishandling.

"X-ray spectrometry shows the drum is filled with carbon, hydrogen and potassium, so it's probably lighter gel plus elemental potassium to make it pyrophoric," said their main technician.

"We could sever the shock tube, aim a bomb disrupter at where it emerges, that would make the bomb safe," said the Home Guard Captain.

"Yeah," said Ahsoka, "We can't see underneath the box though, they could have a backup detonator inside the drum."

"We aim the jet so it also pushes the box, we could sever the line to the secondary detonator if it exists," said the homeguard captain.

Ahsoka nodded and added "the water from the disruptor can't enter the barrel."

"It's not going to take them long to work out that their bombs have been made safe," said the captain, "What would be the next step?"

"Well, I don't think we can sneak people up to the buildings, so, I think we'll have to drive our ships through the walls," said Ahsoka, "steel frame, thin steel skin, rockwool insulation, shouldn't be a problem."

"Yeah, that could work, but then we'd either have to land or rope down to floor level," said the captain, "that would be a really vulnerable time for us, and we'd have slaves underfoot."

"Good point," said Ahsoka, "we need to be able to effect a 360 arc of fire the microsecond we're in there."

"If we could get some open top speeders, rig them with some blades on the front to cut and push aside the steel skin, keep our heads down until we're inside, then pop up and start slotting Zygerrians, we'll need to go into town to buy explosives for our disrupters anyway," said the captain.

"Mean time we should have one of our droids prepare holes for the disruptors, those guards inspect the roof periodically, so we'll have to be able to just plug them in and get into our forward attack positions," said Ahsoka.

"And then there's the sensors," said the captain.

"I've got an idea for that," said their ITC specialist, "I've managed to get into their network, what I can do is I can swap their sensor drivers with our own."

"What do ours do that theirs don't?" asked Ahsoka.

"Masks any Togruta it sees with whatever was behind him or her," said the captain, "it was developed so that if Shili got invaded and occupied, they would be unable to see us using our security systems."

"Nice," said Ahsoka, "that just leaves the X-rays that step outside for a walk. ... Actually, hang on, won't they notice that a whle load of their slaves are suddenly invisible?"

"I can select which cameras get that treatment, all the interior ones can remain unfiltered."

"Looks like we're in business then," said Ahsoka, "we'll also need some animal blood and some sedatives for the critters."

* * *

"The crystal is the heart of the blade," said Luminara. "The heart, is the crystal of the Jedi."

As Barriss was building her Sabre, Luminara continued "The Jedi, is the crystal, of the force. The force is the blade of the heart. All are intertwined. The Crystal. The Blade. The jedi. You are one."

Lighting her blade for the first time, Barris said "You taught me well, Master Luminara."

Of course within minutes of that, a bunch of cloaked robots fixing to blow up the crystal caves made their presence felt and Barriss and Luminara had to hold up a load of rocks that was fixing to crush them.

Now the lightsabre Barriss had made in that cave was in an evidence locker on Corouscant. This was Barris's new sabre. It worked just fine, but ...

Well ...

You don't find your crystal, your crystal finds you. That's how it's supposed to work.

However, a synthetic crystal will work just fine.

She would make a second crystal too, duel wielding agreed with her.

Barriss checked her dosimeter.

Not too bad, little force healing would sort that out.

She looked over to the droids chemically separating the plutonium for another plate.

To avoid accidentally making a supercritical mass, the plates were made as the plutonium was produced, and then put into the spaceframe as soon as they were complete. It was like a series of bar lights, as soon as the plates reached the back of the space, the missile would be ready. The guidance was all set, the course simulated showed the Guidance knew what to do with the missile, hyperdrive tested fine, ray shield worked fine.

It was pretty much all set.

Barriss decided now would be a good time to meditate. Those gamma rays were corrosive.

* * *

Twi'Ethan loaded the plate with the fried diced Nerf meat and carried it over to the table along with a glass of water with a straw. He sat across from Ahsoka's brother and started feeding him the cubes.

Ahsoka's brother accepted the food.

They hadn't said anything to each other since they had arrived at this apartment.

Eventually Twi'Ethan asked "Are you still angry about me cutting into your lekku?"

Ahsoka's brother nodded.

"You do understand that it was the only way to make your mother do what we wanted, right?"

Ahsoka's brother nodded again.

"Good," Twi'ethan said.

"What if the Zygerrians decided they could make a profit from selling you?" asked Ahsoka's brother.

"I kill them," said Twi'Ethan.

"Sounds like I should kill you then," said Ahsoka's Brother.

Twi'Ethan chuckled "Well, if you did that, then what happens to your mother?" He continued to feed the kid as he said "See, without you to threaten, your mother is a very disobedient woman who would have to be brutally tortured into submission, and that takes ages, especially since we intend to sell her on, so she has to look healthy on the outside after being broken on the inside, you know what I'm saying?"

"Yes, that would be most inconvenient I imagine," said Ahsoka's brother.

"Well, who wants a disobedient slave?" asked Twi'Ethan.

"What kind of person wants a slave?" asked Ahsoka's brother.

Twi'Ethan chuckled saying "The kind of person with no moral integrity what so ever I suppose. I mean, if I had any moral integrity, I wouldn't be abducting kids and torturing them to get their mother to comply with owners orders. Or be reasonably well nourished. ... Or alive for that matter."

"Rough childhood?" asked Ahsoka's brother.

"Well ... " Twi'Ethan had to think about that one. He eventually said "Compared to yours, I suppose it is, I mean, on Shili you can afford to be well mannered and high and mighty, you don't know you're born do you? Nar Shaddaa, you have to look out for yourself, my dad prepared me for that. What has your dad taught you?"

"That no one rides for free," said Ahsoka's brother, "we stand together or we fall together, you say we don't know we're born, it's more the case that we maintain a sustainable economy and ecology," this prompted a snort of laughter from Twi'Ethan, "alright, what's the joke?"

"Economy and ecology, I'm sorry, but that's a bit ... what does that even mean?" asked Twi'Ethan.

"Economy? Trading and financial environment, distribution of wealth, we base ours on the production of goods, also on tourism, that's basically your trading environment, ecology? How to put this ... ... Nar Shaddaa doesn't really have one does it? That's basically our natural environment, including beasts such as Akhuls, we opted to hold off hunting them for some seasons to allow their populations to recover so that we could have the opportunity to hunt them for generations to come, because if we were to lose that experience, we would lose one of the things that shape us as a people."

"Akhuls?" asked Twi'Ethan.

"They're large carnivorous creatures that in the past were a constant threat to us."

"Well, they're not sentient are they?" asked Twi'Ethan, "Here on Nar Shaddaa, you're pitted against other sentients, and sentients have guns, knives, explosives, tactics, they plan, they scheme, they communicate. They also lie and cheat and steal."

"Such conflicts arise from poor resource management," said Ahsoka's brother.

"You're a bit smug for a prisoner dependant on my hospitality, aren;t you?" asked Twi'Ethan.

"Well who wins if everyone's theiving and cheating everyone else? Only those doing the thieving and cheating, that is, until their past catches up to them, and even on Nar Shadaa, without a police force, without a justice system, how do you settle vendettas here? How do you get even? The reason Shili does so well, is because we work together, plan together, stand together, that way, everyone wins."

"Well, if you value community so much," said Twi'Ethan, pullign the plate of food away, about a quarter having been fed to Ahsoka's brother, he continued "you won't mind sharing your food with me."

"I suppose my hands are kinda tied on this one," said Ahsoka's brother.

Twi'Ethan chuckled at this and then pushed the plate back towards Ahsoka's brother saying "How can I starve such a funny kid?" and resumed feeding him.

* * *

Ahsoka watched the video feeds from all the cameras. They seemed to be allowing the slaves about half their recommended sleep, probably an attempt to make them reflexively compliment.

There were a number of slaves that were being kept in this elevated cluster of rooms, three male, five female, amongst those, Ahsoka's mum.

The people that had been sent into town had returned and were now making up the bomb disruptors and modifying the speeders.

A male Zygerrian entered Ahsoka's mum's room. Ahsoka's mum walked up to him hugging him. "Good girl," he responded, stroking her montrals. Ahsoka's mum seemed to cringe subtly, but not enough for the Zygerrian to notice. "You know you're pretty enough to be some one's chamber slave, little if any physically demanding roles, just dress, clean, kark and feed the owner."

"Sounds nice," she said.

Had Ahsoka not seen what they had been doing to her before this situation, she might have assumed her mum was a complete slag. Certain very un-jedi thoughts were entering Ahsoka's mind as this pantomime love scene played out.

Ahsoka remembered that girl who had tried to stab Miraj. Anakin had reflexively blocked the move, throwing the girl on her ass, at which point Miraj said "You dare raise a hand against your master? Clearly you need further processing."

This was before Ahsoka knew the full details of that processing centre, but the fact the girl opted to jump off the balcony (which was a good hundred metres or so above street level) to avoid being sent back was not a good indicator.

Ahsoka feared for her mother's mental state.

She heard footsteps approacheing , three sets.

She turned, seeing two members of their team and a Zygerrian prisoner. The Zygerrian was dressed in normal Zygerrian armour like the rest of the guards at that slave processing facility, an odd match to the ghillie suits the patrolling togruta were wearing.

"YOU!" shouted the Zygerrian as he recognised Ahsoka.

"Left an impression did I?" asked Ahsoka as she stepped over to them.

"You and your master Anakin, you RUINED our grand auction, and now you're here to ruin our operation here?"

"Well what do you expect when you go around stealing people? Applause? Adulation?" asked Ahsoka. She idly pulled her knife and started inspecting it.

"You think you can evade us indefinitely? More will be along," said the Zygerrian.

"We're from Shili," said the homeguard captain, "you don't hunt us. We hunt you."

"How long before you're missed?" asked Ahsoka.

"You expect me to answer that?" asked the Zygerrian.

"Not really," said Ashoka, "I also don't expect you Zygerrians to ever stop trying to enslave everyone, seeing as it's some kind of ideal for you. Your queen was clear and proud of this ideology of yours."

"So what are you saying, that you can't let us live?" asked the Zygerrian.

Ahsoka approached the Zygerrian saying "If we let you lot go free you'll start all over again, people will be abducted again, tortured into submission again, this isn't something we can allow if we have the opportunity to prevent it. All the guards in that facility, they're going to have to die. That's the only way we can assure the survival of the people you abducted."

The Zygerrian asked "I suppose that means me too?"

Ahsoka paused and eventually said "No. You're coming back to Shili with us. I'm arresting you for conspiracy to traffic in sentients and any counts of assault, rape and murder that come up." Ahsoka re-sheathed her knife and returned to the console, saying to the home guard captain "this complicates things a little, we have until this guy fails to check in before they step up their level of alert."

"We estimate another hour before we're done building those bomb disruptors," said the Homeguard captain.

"And the next roof inspection occurs in one hour," said Ahsoka, "I'm going to take a team with the disruptors we have now over, that way we can start putting disruptors in the instant that inspection is completed."

* * *

Luminara saw the formation of spacecraft surrounding Kamino.

"We should run some exercises," said Luminara, "assess Barris's chances of getting through with a nuke."

"How big a nuke do you think Barris will use" asked Saul.

"That's a hard question," said Luminara, "I can imagine her being tempted to go for broke, binominal probability of getting through depreciates with the number of attacks she mounts, but a bigger nuke means more inertia."

"Also, how close to Kamino can Barriss emerge from Hyperspace?" asked Saul.

"Using the force ... " Luminara thought about this, but eventually said "Close. That's why we have fighter cover at so many altitudes."

"Even a Jedi or similarly trained force active individual would have problems against this, what if she used a hyperspace missile?"

Luminara thought about this one saying "She'd need it to emerge from Hyperspace to acquire the target, unless she rides along with it, that means the accuracy would be that of a navicomp, which is generally insufficient for this."

"And if the missile used hyperspace all the way in," said Saul.

"Most nuclear weapon designs wouldn't be functional," said Luminara, she then said "of course this being a custom build, she could use a design that not only withstands the impact, but incorporates it into it's function. Having said that, a circular probability error of a couple of megametres ... " Luminara leaned against the holotable. "We're still not seeing it, she's doing something we're not seeing."

Luminara finally stood up and left saying "I'm going to meditate."


	6. New Changes

Ahsoka and her team approached the perimeter fence. The attack beasts had been sedated, so they weren't a problem, and the new programs had been installed, so they were now invisible on camera.

Ahsoka did wonder if keeping her lightsabre would have been helpful, she hadn't been re-issued it since being kicked out the temple, but the cable shears seemed to work fine. Working them slow enough to assure they'd stay undetected was difficult.

But she had eventually cut enough of the fence that they could advance through to the inner fence.

That would take a similar amount of time to get through.

The snipers watching the area had reported no activity on ground level, so Ahsoka and her team pressed on, keeping low in case they needed to hit the ground, but moving as fast as they could without making noise.

"Nest two from Tano, update on roof inspector, over?"

"Roof inspector still up there, hold at forward position, over," replied Nest Two a sniper position overlooking the area Ahsoka's team had approached through.

They lay prone around a bush that was growing through the not even slightly maintained apron.

"Tano from command, two X-rays about to emerge from door three zero one, over."

"Have that," replied Ahsoka.

The door opened and as predicted, two Zygerrians emerged, looking outwards, seemingly alert.

They weren't looking inwards, and hopefully if they did, Ahsoka's team would be sufficiently well concealed to hide from them.

But that would basically kill all the slaves, if they were compromised, they would have to change tactics and attempt to kill any zygerrian that could command the bombs to detonate before they realise what's happening and reach the decision to set off the bombs. Given the profit they would stand to lose from this and the rest of the Zygerrians in the space with the slaves that would probably be incinerated alongside the slaves, that might not be an easy decision.

That might give them the time they need.

The immediate action called for their ITC specialist to suddenly activate the Togruta filter on the internal cameras and for the teams in the speeders to attack while Ahsoka's team would enter the passageway linking the smaller building to the three huge hangers, and split up, two would stop any enemy coming down the tunnel while the remaining six would clear the small building.

But those bombs would be armed the whole time, and it would only take one Zygerrian sending the detonation command to kill everyone.

Luckilly they didn't seem to be noticing.

"Tano from nest two, roof inspector's back inside, clear to ascend as soon as ground level X-rays are out of sight, over."

"Have that," replied Ahsoka.

The patrol eventually rounded the corner.

"Team Tano ascending now, over" announced Ahsoka. She slung her bag and used her telekinesis to propel herself up, putting her apogee at just the right altitude that she could step onto the roof almost completely noiselessly. She then picked up the rest of her team one by one and they went to the pre-stitched holes, cutting the final links with their knives and pulling out the wool that the lasers had cut. Next step was to slide in the disruptor, pull the pin, and move on.

Pulling the pin armed it. There was a light that would activate if it received the command to detonate, in which case you don't pull the pin, you leave it in until the twat with the remote stopped sending the signal.

There were two charges, one was at the front to knock the front plate out the way of the water bullet, and one at the back to propel the water bullet towards the bomb.

The propelling charge was wrapped around the water bullet, they had used 20mm conduit for the barrel and 80mm drain pipe for the propelling charge, so it was impossible to get it in back to front and they wouldn't need the conduit to channel the full pressure of the explosive.

It was still going to take a while to get them all in.

That was a lot of time for something to go wrong.

* * *

The last plate was in place.

Barriss assembled the case around the plates herself and then went through the final checks.

Everything seemed to check out. The program was booted and standing by in safe mode, so Barriss could now connect the physical power lines to the RCS thrusters and the hyperdrive with little to no risk of any of those systems operating inside the ship.

The missile would have to be dropped out the back door. Barriss put the helmet on, completing the EVA suit around her in case the force field failed.

It didn't. The missile floated back.

Barriss closed the door and returned to the flight deck.

She moved her ship clear of the missile and uplinked the ship's computer to the missile. The correct course was loaded.

She sent the arming code which would arm all the systems and bring the missile to a single button push away from launch.

The code was accepted.

The choice now offered between fire and cancel was a bit of an intense moment. Barriss was about to do something that really Jedi shouldn't.

Even though this was a line she had crossed, shavited on, teased and humiliated already, this was still something she felt reluctant to do.

But it had to be done.

She pressed the fire button.

The missile shot off into hyperspace.

Barriss sighed and relaxed in her seat.

She would carry out a fly by recce a day after impact. By that point, it should be just about safe enough to enter the vicinity.

* * *

They were now waiting for the last bags of disruptors.

Ground level patrols occurred a long time apart, but they always seemed to occur at a time when it caused them a delay.

And it was happening again.

There was no immediate sign that the Zygerrians were going to notice their scout hadn't returned, or anything else would happen, but they longer this took, the greater the danger to the slaves.

"Tano from command, two X-rays ascending to roof via door four one eight, over."

Shavit.

"Have that," replied Ahsoka, she was about to go to the door herself, but she remembered she would be needed to lift the remaining disruptors to the roof.

The roof was now so obviously tampered with that they couldn't afford any of these Zygerrians seeing this and reporting it. Ahsoka signalled two of her team to get over to the door.

The door was located in a pit near the back wall of the hanger, a drain assuring rain water would not pool in it. The two Homeguard would position themselves over the door.

One thing they had observed the guards doing is one stands inside the door while the other completely ascends the steps, then the one at the door joins the other on the roof to carry out the inspection.

That meant the two togruta would have to land exactly between them, and make sure the one inside didn't fall over the side or shout out.

They waited just out of sight of the door, one with their suppressed slug thrower, the other with a knife.

The door opened.

The point man ascended the stairs.

They just about saw the top of his helmet when the two of them made their run, landing back to back outside the door, the one going after the tail Zygerrian grabbing his opponent's collar and stabbing up through the jaw up into the brainstem.

The point Zygerrian fell like a sack of shavit after his brainstem got blown out the back of his skull.

Holding the tail guy by his collar, the togruta handling the tail guy pulled the tail guy out into the stairwell and closed the door.

"From command, no signs of concern on the part of the X-rays."

This was a bit too close to failure for Ahsoka's taste, but they were still on.

"Have that," replied Ahsoka.

* * *

"Time for you to start calling people again," said the Zygerrian in charge.

"No," said Ahsoka's mum.

"No?" he asked.

"That's right: No, as in I'm not doing it. I should have told you no to begin with."

He looked down at her sternly as he reminded her "I remember. You kept saying no until we finally had to grab your son and start cutting at his lekku. Would you like us to saw off his montrals?"

"I would like you to stop enslaving people, but what I did to appease you was unforgivable."

* * *

"Karking hell," said their computer specialist.

"Anything we can do?" asked the Captain.

"We can delay the call, but we overplay that, they'll smell a Mynock."

"What else?"

"frame rate can be slowed, annoying, but likely to be assumed a system malfunction."

"Alright then," said the captain. He then sent "All callsigns from command, stand to, nest two from command, how long before that last team are cleared to approach?"

"From Nest Two, Estimate five minutes."

"Command from Tano, sitrep, over?"

"Tano, they want your mum to recruit more slaves for them, your mum's refusing, they're about to try to remind her what her son in unbearable agony sounds like."

After a delay, Ahsoka answered "Have that. All callsigns, reminder, we will be moving as fast as the situation allows, but watch you do not skip any essential steps, any mistake could kill everyone inside those buildings, over."

No one likes being reminded of the blindingly obvious, but even the best can kark up if they get complacent, so no one was too annoyed with Ahsoka.

* * *

Luminara woke up saying "OF COURSE!" She then stood up and started jogging to the bridge.

When Luminara got to the bridge, she had settled on what she was going to tell everyone.

"I can't explain exactly why at the moment, but it is important we evacuate the ship, I need to get it away from Kamino, I think Barriss is using it to guide her weapon."

"General?" asked the ship's captain.

"I'll explain all when I get back."

"Fine," said the Captain. He used his communicator and ordered the evacuation.

"Master," whispered Saul, "what's really going on?"

"I can't say at this time, please, go with the crew."

"No, not without an explanation."

"Can you sense hostility from me?" asked Luminara.

Saul felt Luminara's force signature, but eventually said "No. Just distress."

"All will become clear soon."

"Alright Master. Force be with you." He then bowed and left.

Luminara walked over to the Helm and reminded herself which controls did what.

At some point, She received a communication from Shaak Ti.

"What can I do for you Shaak?"

"Luminara, why is your crew abandoning ship?"

"I've found out how Barriss intends to destroy Kamino."

* * *

"Ground zero one from Nest Two, Clear to move, over."

"Have that, moving."

Ahsoka waited as they got close enough and then telekinetically lifted the last disruptors from them. She regretted starting with the first hanger. Her team in the deliberate plan of attack would clear the elevated rooms in the first hanger. They would have to go over to the third one, place the disruptors, and then return to door 418.

* * *

"Now, Mrs Tano, we did have this conversation previously, I thought we had an understanding," said Twi'Ethan.

"I can not do this," said Ahsoka's mum.

"Mum, these guys will overreach, just go with them," said Ahsoka's brother.

This was about as annoying as it gets. If She knew that there was a team assembling around the slave facility ...

How far away were they from acting anyway?

Rescue was iminant, or inevitable, soon, probably, but if he told her openly, then the slavers would know, and they can't.

"No. I'm sorry son, I can't keep helping these bastards."

"Well," said Twi'Ethan, as he started looking through his tool box, "you know what that means for your son. I have to say, I'm glad you're not my mother, I mean, karking hell bitch," as he pulled out a wood chisel and a 500g clawhammer.

"Look, trust me mum, as long as everyone's alive, there is always hope," said Ahsoka's brother.

Twi'Ethan then thought to ask "Here, that giggle dust you've been feeding her, that's not in effect at the moment is it? Just this would be a bit pointless if she's still high."

"No, she's clean about now," said the Zygerrian holding Ahsoka's mum's montrals.

"Okay then," Twi'Ethan beckoned his Weequay assistant over to hold Ahsoka's Brother's head still. This being done, Twi'ethan lined the chisel along the tip of one of the kid's montrals.

* * *

"From Tano, all disruptors in place, moving to FAP, over."

"Have that," replied the captain, "Speeders, go, all others, standby."

"God, hurry up Ahsoka," said Ahsoka's dad as he, like the other members of the Nar Shaddaa team, stood inside the frame charges.

He could hear his son crying out from whatever was going on down there. He couldn't see it. He was tempted to set off the charge and drop in now.

"Stand by," repeated the homeguard captain. He kept repeating that almost rhythmically.

The reason for that was that it was impractical to work out the time remaining until the arrival of the speeders at the hangers.

Ahsokas' team reached the door and Ahsoka pulled her blaster and the remote for the disruptors. She armed the remote and got ready to shove the door off the hinges.

"Standby."

"Stand by."

"Stand by.

"Go."

* * *

On Nar Shaddaa, Twi'Ethan's apartment was suddenly connected to the apartment above by four 1.2m by 1.2m holes, the floor/ceiling cut out by the frame charges were followed each by a Shili home guard member each equipped with a blaster. Handilly, Twi'ethan and goon stood up straight, giving the two home guard in the kitchen/dining room a clean shot at their heads without fear of hitting Ahsoka's brother.

The blasts from the disruptors drew the attention of everyone.

* * *

Seeing the modified speeders break through the walls above them held their attention as several grenades were chucked out and exploded in mid air, chucking out almost steller intense light and a shrill ear/montral piercing noise.

While this was going on, Ahsoka's team had started down the stairs in the first hanger headed for the elevated block.

Meanwhile, the Zygerrian guards at ground level were still having problems working out what was going on as the homeguard in the speeders were shooting them.

* * *

First the connection had been lost, an error message apologising for the problem, next thing some blasts outside.

"What's going on out there?" asked the guard holding Ahsoka's mum's montrals.

The sound of doors being kicked off their hinges and blaster fire was getting closer until the door to the room they were in flew inwards. The two zygerrians barely had time to work out it was Togruta that were doing this as two piled through and shot the pair of them.

"Mum, you alright? You good to move?" asked this young adult Togruta female, who had called her 'mum'.

"Ahsoka?" she asked.

"We need to get out, some of those drums may have been ruptured by the disruptors," said Ahsoka as she telekinetically grabbed one of the Zygerrian's blasters and handed it to her.

"Right, of course," said Ahsoka's mum as she accepted the weapon, she moved to the door, aiming ahead, watching for threats as she had been taught by the Homeguard instructor, and Ahsoka lead off.

They made it out of the elevated block when a noise above them caught Ahsoka's attention. "Oh, shavit," she commented as they continued to the roof access they had entered through.

The drum then fell and covered about a sixth of the floor with burning lighter gel which, as predicted, ignited upon contact with the air. They could feel the heat coming off of that and saw the ceiling immediately disappear above a veil of ferociously hot and acrid smoke. "Oh really shavit," said Ahsoka as they continued up the stairs but found themselves unable to force themselves to continue through, the smoke was just too hot.

"Right, other way," said Ahsoka. She jumped over the side and started moving people right up to the door out of there.

It was seconds into this phase of the escape when it started raining drums as the drums melted around the top. Ahsoka force leaped towards the door, barely missing the last person out before her.

"Everyone's out, right?" asked Ahsoka.

"Except the Zygerrians," said one of the home guard.

"Cremation it is then," laughed another.

"Right," nodded Ahsoka, she then noted the state of undress of a lot of the slaves and asked "these people had clothes when they arrived didn't they?"

"We didn't see anything other than the work clothes," said one of the home guard.

"We were forced to strip and sort our clothes in that building over there," said Ahsoka's mum.

One of the Togruta slaves glared at Ahsoka's mum and snarled "you karking TRAITOR!" and started to run at her.

Ahsoka stopped him telekinetically saying "STOP! They had my brother, she didn't have a choice, alright?"

Ahsoka's mum looked around, but couldn't face anyone. She was suddenly fixated with the muzzle of her blaster, and Ahsoka felt the force signature of her mum spike with distress. She grabbed the weapon around the trigger guard, making it impossible for her mum to close it around the trigger.

Ahsoka's mum looked up at Ahsoka, then back down at the gun and realised what this looked like. She loosened her grip enough for Ahsoka to remove the weapon.

"The zygerrians had control of the situation. The choice you were forced to make ... "

"I made a decision to refuse further co-operation knowing what they would do to your brother. How can I ever face him again?"

"I accepted his offer to allow himself to be abducted to I could find you," said Ahsoka.

That got her mother's attention.

"I couldn't think of another way, so I accepted his offer." Ahsoka offered her mother the pistol grip again, only this time with the weapon aimed straight at Ahsoka's heart.

Ahsoka's mum, now feeling enraged, finally said "You think I won't shoot you after hearing that?"

"That's up to you innit?" said Ahsoka.

"You think your brother will ever be right again after this?" asked her mum.

* * *

"So, I get to stay up all hours and watch porn now, right?" asked Ahsoka's brother as the Nar Shaddaa team made it's way to the spaceport.

"Kark off," said Ahsoka's dad.

"Aw come on, I walked into a trap full of pain and suffering on purpose."

"In exchange for freeing your mum."

"Well, yeah, but what about a bonus for an exceptional performance?"

"Nice try, but you're not going to guilt trip me."

"Fine, I'll guild trip mum instead. She's got to be feeling vulnerable about now."

"Don't you dare you little shavit."

* * *

Saul entered the situation room, where Shaak was on a comm. To Luminara.

"You got the ship away, you don't need to be there any more," said Shaak.

"Actually I do."

Saul approached the holotable showing the Kamino system with all the ships.

"Why? If the missile's targeting the ship," said Shaak.

"It's not," said Saul, noticing the location and attitude of the ship.

Shaak looked over to the holotable and approached.

Luminata's ship was parked opposite Kamino around Kamino's host star.

It was pointed away from Kamino's host star.

"I'm sorry for lying, but we're short on time," said Luminara, "Too short on time for an argument about who should be engaged in starship soresu."

"Master, you have experience and expertise I don't, you should have had me do this," said Saul.

"Would you had the situation been reversed?" asked Luminara.

"No," admitted Saul.

"There you go then. You have been a good Jedi for as long as I knew you, whoever you learn under, you will-" She was interrupted by an explosion.

* * *

Barriss was shocked out of her meditation by a disturbance in the force.

"Master!"

Analysing her master's force signature she worked out what had happened.

"Damn it master!" Barriss decided now would be a good time for her fly by recce.

* * *

Saul and Shaak saw an annotation pop up over Luminara's ship showing damage and radiation statistics.

"That was it," he looked to the holocomm with Luminara in it, Luminara was still awake and moving. "you survived."

"No, at least, not for long," said Luminara, "there was Cerenkov radiation originating inside my eyes, that's beyond lethal, even with healing powers."

Saul and Shaak looked to her.

"We can get someone over there now and get you into an infirmary-" started Saul.

"No chance," said Shaak, reading the expanded environmental stats off the ship, "the ship's just too hot right now, anyone going in to retrieve her will eat a lethal dose themselves."

"How did the ship get so contaminated? How did Luminara get irradiated? These ships have shields don't they?" asked Saul.

"It seems the weapon went through the forward shield and went supercritical against the back shield," said Shaak, "the detonation wasn't optimal, the weapon fizzled, and the waste and unreacted plutonium has plated the hull of the ship."

"Shavit," commented Saul.

"Yeah," replied Shaak.

"Well how long before we can approach?" asked Saul.

The answer was not good.

They all stood around not sure what to do.

Luminara did something.

She managed to get the ship moving towards Kamino's star.

* * *

Barriss emerged from hyperspace. She found Luminara's ship and scanned it.

"Damn it master, what the kark?" She sent a comm. Signal to Luminara's ship and Luminara answered, looking as bad as her force signature felt. It had been about half an hour since the missile had failed to blow up the Kamino system.

"Barriss," said Luminara, barely able to speak.

"Master, why did you do this?" Asked barriss.

"Because I'm a Jedi," said Luminara.

"Those clones are not your friend Master," said Barriss, "you should have let the missile through."

"AND YOU SHOULD HAVE FOUND A WAY THAT DIDN'T INVOLVE NUKING THE WHOLE KARKING KAMINO SYSTEM! I SWEAR I TAUGHT YOU BETTER THAN THIS BARRISS," Luminara's tirade was interrupted by a coughing fit, centilitre sized blobs of blood ran down the hand Luminara had in front of her mouth.

Barriss kept glancing at her tactical scope, noting the approach of a LOT of fighters.

She had minutes to wind this up and get out of it.

"I did ask what you would have done about the clone threat. You had no answer," said Barriss, "I'm sorry, but doing nothing is not an option. ... Go with the force master."

"Go kark yourself," replied Luminara, "really, just ... Kark you."

The fighters were beginning to secure weapons lock on Barris's ship. Time to go. Barriss sat back and initiated the autopilot to take her through the preplanned waypoints in hyperspace.

There was nothing more she could do with Kamino at this point. She just didn't have the means to try again. She would have to try something a bit more modest for the time being.


	7. New Conclusion

"My master would like to know what a load of Togruta are doing setting fire to his world," said the protocol droid.

"Well, we saw these burning buildings and came here to rescue everyone," said the home guard captain.

The Hutt said something else that was translated as "what about the two over there who were in town today buying two open top speeders and a karkload of explosives and detonators?"

"Silly stunt unrelated to this incident," said the captain, he then asked "what do you know of this place? Just we've been hearing from the people we rescued about how they were tricked into coming and then detained for sale into slavery?"

The Hutt's reply translated as "This is not a republic world, it is perfectly legal to own and use slaves here."

"Appreciated, but some of these people are Shili nationals and all are republic citizens," said the homeguard captain.

The Hutt's reply translated as "They would still be the property of their owners."

"Hmm. Who inherits the slaves if all their owners are dead?" asked the Homeguard captain.

The Hutt's response was translated as "Why are their owners dead?"

"Because they picked a fight with us and we had to defend ourselves. We offered our help and they shot at us. What were we to do, you know?"

The Hutt replied, which translated to "They were up to date on their protection money payments, this puts us at odds because we are pledged to protect them."

"I see. Well, give me a minute to confer with my friends, we'll see what we can offer by way of compensation," said the Home Guard captain as he stepped away and transmitted to Ahsoka "Ahsoka, the local Hutt in't best pleased with us over the passing of the Zygerrians that were paying him his protection money because it makes him look like a prat, and since we don't have the backing of the government of Shili, we can do ... What ... Over?"

Ahsoka eventually replied "Give me a few minutes, I'll organise something for us to pay him, it'll be proportional to all the protection money times the number of payments over the projected sales cycle of the slaves, over."

"Have that," the captain then returned to the Hutt saying "I have my people working out a compensation package now, it'll be a few minutes before we have something to propose."

* * *

"Luminara was dead in about 8 hours, the ship was vaporised by the star of Kamino 20 hours after that," said Saul.

"Hard for you, that must have been," said Yoda.

"Think it was hard for Barriss too," said Obi-wan.

"Yeah, that's a crying shame," commented Anakin, "question is, what's her next move? She tried to blow up the Kamino system."

"We accounted for all the plutonium in the waste plating the hull of Luminara's ship before it dropped into the star's corona, so whatever she does next, she's starting off with just that ship, her droids, the clothes on her back and enough fuel to get to about the middle of Huttspace from Kamino," said Mace.

"Need a new master, Saul will," said Yoda.

"I could do that," said Anakin, "I've worked with multiple students before."

Everyone looked to Obi-wan. Obi-wan eventually answered "Anakin did do a really good job with Ahsoka, I don't see why not."

"Well then, it is very," said Yoda.

* * *

"And now we have a new wanted poster for Barriss Offee," said the mock newsreader, "ready?" he asked. He then hit a button and a picture of a two-headed Barriss Offee was presented, drawing gales of laughter from the audience.

Padme wasn't sure whether she would find it funny in normal circumstances, or if her proximity to the subject matter made a difference, but all she could think about was how Ahsoka was nearly killed, and how Luminara Unduli had just died horribly from having a blast of ionising radiation melt her guts.

Blow up Kamino. ... The star system ...

Ambitious karker.

They'd have had about ten minutes to get everyone they could on board and do one.

Not even slightly enough time.

What choice did Luminara have?

And now there was clambering for stronger laws against sedition.

What choice did most the politicians have?

Well, the legal system is strong enough as it is, what everyone's arguing for is a weakening of the evidence code to make it easier to convict.

Make it TOO easy to convict in Padme's opinion.

And the opinion of a lot of lawyers she knew too.

But democracy worked on the popular vote.

But leadership was about making the right thing popular.

She was going to have a lot of leading to do ... ...

* * *

The Zygerrians were buoyant in mood as they had received a very large order for their entire stock.

All the slaves were secure and the ship was in hyperspace, so nothing to do but to kick back and relax.

It was about 20 minutes into the flight that they started getting hit by stun blasts.

It was about 40 minutes into the flight when the Zygerrians woke up wearing the restraints that their slaves should have been wearing, and that in addition to their slaves, there were a whole load of armed togruta wearing full tactical gear and patches with "Shili Home Guard" on their shoulders.

One of them wearing what looked like a higher rank insignia than the others greeted the newly awakened Zygerrians "Hello skugs."

"Shavit," commented the lead Zygerrian with a wince.

* * *

The small craft landed and Ahsoka's dad and another Shili Home Guard stepped out carrying with them a heavy looking container.

Opening it revealed it to be chock full of credits.

The Hutt said something that translated as "You may leave," as two of the Hutt's goons picked up the case. All the Hutts forces withdrew.

Ahsoka's dad then used his comm. To call down the spaceliner and headed off in search of Ahsoka's mum.

He found Ahsoka and her mum as they emerged from that building. He hugged Ahsoka's mum who reluctantly returned the hug. He then asked "You alright there?"

"Not really. How's our son doing?"

"Well, fortunately the damage to his montral looks set to heal, very minimal scarring. Unfortunately, he's still incurably a precocious, little, shavite."

"I let that happen," she said, "I couldn't continue to help the Zygerrians in that way, it was just too much. But I shouldn't have ... What kind of mother am I to be ignoring the suffering of my child?"

"One who was put in a situation that should never have existed," said Ahsoka, "everything that happened was the fault of those Zygerrian slavers."

"You're right ... Just need to remind myself of that."

They joined everyone else on the spaceliner and on their way to their room, came across a room full of Zygerrians tied to their chairs.

"Oh yeah" commented Ahsoka's mum.

"Thought you'd like that," said Ahsoka, "see, when I got into their computers, I found they had other facilities like that one, so in addition to cleaning out their treasury, I bounced a chunk of it around various ghost accounts and paid an advance on their whole stocks, and hired these ships to move them. Obviously the Zygerrians weren't going to trust the sort of people who buy slaves to pay in full if there wasn't a force to bring the slaves back if the money failed to materialise, and we didn't really want them expecting a fight, so we had our people hide on the ships when the ships made their way to the processing facilities."

"Aww nice," replied Ahsoka's mum.

"Rest of the money, well, they did promise a high wage in their publicity material," said Ahsoka.

"Yours is waiting in our room," said Ahsoka's dad.

"Rest of the money covers the transport, and donations to a number of organisations that help freed slaves and gather evidence to prosecute anyone capturing or transporting slaves."

"So they're broke basically?" asked Ahsoka's mum.

"Even better: They're in debt. Took out several trillion credits of loans in their name, and that's part of the overall load we skanked off of them," said Ahsoka.

"Nice. Hey, you reckon they'll have to sell themselves into slavery?" asked Ahsoka's mum.

"Most likely. Well, except this lot, they're going to jail," said Ahsoka.

"Won't Atai work it out?" asked Ahsoka's mum.

"He might, but ... " replied Ahsoka.

* * *

"I can no longer lead a culture that subjects so many beings to the misery of slavery, I am therefore going to dismantle our culture of evil."

"THAT'S NOT ME!" shrieked Atai as the shuttle took off.

"I know," said one of his bodyguards, "but try telling that to an angry mob, they've seen this, they want you impaled on a flagpole and picked apart by birds."

"BUT HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?" he asked.

"As far as we can tell, someone got into our computers, there's no way some slicer could have done all that without being force active," said the bodyguard, "we've also identified the species of some of the people that withdrew cash from the accounts the money was transferred to, they were Togruta."

"KIROS?"

"No, these were wearing Shili Homeguard patches, the unit comes from the village that Ashoka Tano came from."

"AWWWWWWW, I KARKING HATE KARKING TOGRUTA!"

"Noted."

* * *

"Who do you think you are kidding Mr Molec," sang the home guard unit as it alighted the ship, funnelling the Zygerrian prisoners down the middle to the waiting cops, "if you think we're on the run," they sang on.

"So, Ahsoka, what are you thinking of doing now?" Asked the Village Homeguard captain.

"Hmm," mused Ahsoka, as she thought this through. "I really like work as a Jedi, that's what I grew up doing, I just wish I could trust the council, but those bell ends ... ... ... I suppose I'm going to have to work something out where my current skill set applies." Ahsoka watched as all the freed slaves stepped off to meet with relatives that had come to pick them up or otherwise arrange travel off of Shili.

Ahsoka eventually said "Zygerrians aren't the only slavers in the galaxy. Something needs to be done to free everyone who has been enslaved. But I can't operate alone. I'd need a base of support."

"Well, we could discuss back at our village the willingness of everyone to support operations offworld, but I think everyone might be up for that," said the homeguard captain, "where do you want to do first then?"

"Where to start ... I want to say Ryloth, I mean, Republic officially bans slavery, but Ryloth gets around this with special labour contracting laws ... Bit too entrenched though, there's an ideological aspect, might be better to start with one of those criminal worlds where if it's no longer profitable, the crooks will kark off and do something else instead."

"Well, do your research, get back to me with a proposal, and we'll discuss what's possible," said the homeguard captain as he walked off.

Ahsoka noticed a fammliar force presence behind her plus two more force active individuals. She greeted the familiar one "Hi Skyguy," before turning to face him.

"Council sent me to get some information on this situation," said Anakin, he then introduced his padawans to Ahsoka.

"Two padawans?" asked Ahsoka, "something to do with the way my departure affected you?"

"Saul needed a new master, he was with Luminara."

"Wait, is Luminara dead?" asked Ahsoka.

"Yeah, she blocked a missile Barriss shot at Kamino's star, got irradiated to death when it fizzled inside the ship's shields."

"Blocked it? You mean with her ship?" asked Ahsoka.

"It was going to hit the star in hyperspace, only option Luminara had was to put her ship in the way."

"Shavit," commented Ahsoka. On the one hand, the loss of Luminara combined with the fact Barriss was the one who done it was annoying, but on the other hand, she was internally telling herself 'well what did you expect she'd do? Barriss had killed a load of Jedi, load of clones, tried to frame you for capitol offences ... '

"We'll get Barriss, some day," said Anakin, almost growling the words.

"Eh, right, well, situation here, As you recall we had mounted a surveillance operation to try and locate the Zygerrians facility, we found one on Nal Hutta, rigged with incendiary bombs that could be set off if they thought they were about to lose the facility, we rigged disruptors, disabled the bombs, kicked the doors in, turned the Zygerrians heads inside out, then we got into their system and identified other facilities. Other facilities, we used more guile, tricked them into exposing themselves to us stunning them, and, we cleaned out and took out loans in the name of their treasury, so ... " Ahsoka grinned maniacally and did a double thumbs up.

Anakin then said "the order could really use you, you know."

Ahsoka nodded, but said "I can't. What I said before still stands. I'm still going to be out there, doing whatever good I can, just not from inside the order. So, how is it going with your new padawans?"

Anakin shrugged and said "Alright so far. Bit more reserved than I'm used to, I'm sure I can fix that."

"Well then, I got some operations to plan. Good seeing you again," said Ahsoka, before she bowed her head and walked off.

* * *

Asajj entered the cantina, hoping she'd get something out of this.

These resistance fighters had hired her, but left the specifics of the job out. If she could go through with it, there'd be about 20,000 credits for her, otherwise, she just takes the 700 credits she was paid to show up at the meeting.

She asked the barman "do you do a Flervian Karcheep here?"

"No," said the barman.

"They don't do a Yissian Ikian either," said a familiar voice next to her.

Asajj looked to her right. Ahsoka was sat on a bar stool sipping a Corellian ale.

"Hmm. I'll have a Raal then, straight up," as she fished out a credit from her pocket and sat down, paying the barman for the drink. As the barman left, Asajj asked Ahsoka "So, any other Jedi here?"

"Not that I know of, I'm out of the order now," said Ahsoka. Ahsoka then winced saying "I was going to talk to the senate about getting you that pardon wasn't I?"

"Yes. You were," said Assaj.

"Yeah. Barriss being the culprit just ... I mean ... Such a mindkark you know?"

"Being force active, we do know a thing or two about mind karks, don't we?" commented Asajj.

"Well, I'll definitely have to get onto Padme once we're done here," said Ahsoka.

"You want to," said Asajj, "I hear knots in your lekku aren't the most comfortable things."

"Yeesh. ... So, give you some idea, we're going to turn a couple of those B2 droids into walking suits, those will replace a couple more which we'll destroy and kill, infil their ships in orbit, and ... figure things out from there basically."

"Figure things out from there?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"From the middle of an enemy stronghold chock full of droids?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Well, a job's a job," Asajj said with a shrug before a long sip of her drink.

"Do you do an Umbaran Ember?" asked a familiar voice.

This was so close to being a spit take.

Assaj and Ahsoka slowly turned to see a certain green Mirialan force active fugitive who was now looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"Well, this is awkward," commented Barriss.

* * *

End.


End file.
